A part of it, the Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei, was founded in 1847 by European Jesuit missionaries the Shanghai Municipal Library, built in 1952, later absorbed the Bibliotheca. Shanghai Library, ChinaĪt 56 million items, China’s Shanghai library actually beats out the National Library of China. Unlike the British Library, which is available for absolutely everyone and has no official mission beyond that, the Library of Congress technically exists mainly for Congressional inquiries. The nearly $700 million annual budget doesn’t hurt. Since the American Civil War, it’s managed to grow rapidly. Then more bad luck struck in 1851, and a fire put paid to most of the collection. It got back on its feet and bought Thomas Jefferson’s own private library of over 6000 books. It was first founded in 1800, but the British destroyed most of the original collection in 1814 (during…the War of 1812). The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., has around 170 million items, and is America’s national library. This one looks absolutely majestic – I can’t wait to visit! Once you’ve actually made it into the Reading Room, though, it’s a quiet and pretty place to work. On one farcical occasion, I had to take the lift between the basement and third floor a good three or four times, because I kept forgetting various items down in my basement locker – such as my phone, wallet, and the card I needed to get past the guards. Visiting can admittedly be a bit of a hassle. The British Library was technically founded in 1973, but before that most of its collections were part of the British Museum. They receive 8000 new titles per day, so that runoff is badly needed. The main seat of the library is in London (near the world-famous King’s Cross Station) but there’s also a runoff in Boston Spa. It has between 170 million and 200 million items, squeezed onto 388 miles of shelves. I’m proud to announce that, despite having a budget that’s only about a third of the Library of Congress, the British Library clocks in as the world’s biggest library. There is some debate about exactly which libraries are the biggest, but these are the numbers I think are truest. Note: this does not include privately owned libraries. Here are ten of the world’s biggest – with a few facts thrown in too. The upper limit, though, is over ten times that amount. There are 22 libraries in the world that have a whopping 15 million items catalogued.
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