Editing London Library (section)

==Collections==
The Library's collections, which range from the 16th century to the present day, are strong within the fields of literature, fiction, fine and applied art, architecture, history, biography, philosophy, religion, topography, and travel. The social sciences are more lightly covered. Pure and natural sciences, technology, medicine and law are not within the library's purview, although it has some books in all of those fields; books on their histories are normally acquired. [[Periodical publication|Periodicals]] and annuals on a wide range of subjects are also held in the collections. Special collections include subjects of hunting, field sports, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and of Jewish interest.<ref name="Skyhorse Publishing">{{cite book|last1=Murray|first1=Stuart|title=The Library: An Illustrated History|date=2009|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing|location=New York, New York}}</ref>

The Library now holds more than one million items, and each year, it acquires approximately 8,000 new books and periodicals.<ref name="Skyhorse Publishing"/> 97% of the collection is available for loan, either on-site or through the post. It is the largest lending library in Europe. Members play a central role in the selection and development of the collections, bequeathing their personal libraries, donating copies of their own books, serving on the Books Selection Committee, making suggestions for acquisition and more.<ref>{{cite journal|first=C.|last=Phipps|title=The London Library|journal=Art Libraries Journal|volume=31|year=2006|pages=5–10|doi=10.1017/S0307472200014310 |s2cid=156461531 }}</ref>

The Library also subscribes to many [[Electronic journal|ejournals]] and other [[Bibliographic database|online databases]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://elibrary.londonlibrary.co.uk/|title=E-library|work=londonlibrary.co.uk}}</ref> All post-1950 acquisitions are searchable on the on-line catalogue, and pre-1950 volumes are progressively being added as part of the Retrospective Cataloguing Project.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lms3.londonlibrary.co.uk/F?RN=125718857|title=The London Library online catalogue - basic search|work=londonlibrary.co.uk}}</ref>

95% of the collection is housed on open shelves (the remaining 5% includes rare books held in secure storage). This open access policy – which contrasts with that in many other large libraries, including the [[British Library]] – is greatly valued by members. [[Colin Wilson]] remembered his first visit to the library in the mid 1960s: "I have always had an obsession about books, and in this place I felt like a [[Hypersexuality|sex maniac]] in the middle of a [[harem]]".<ref>Grindea 1978, p. 91.</ref> [[Arthur Koestler]] recorded how in 1972, commissioned to report on the [[World Chess Championship 1972|Spassky–Fischer chess championship]] in [[Reykjavík]], he visited the Library to carry out some background research:
{{blockquote|I hesitated for a moment whether to go to the "C" for chess section first, or the "I" for Iceland section, but chose the former, because it was nearer. There were about twenty to thirty books on chess on the shelves, and the first that caught my eye was a bulky volume with the title, [https://archive.org/details/chessinicelandin00fiskuoft/page/172/mode/2up ''Chess in Iceland and Icelandic Literature''] by [[Willard Fiske]], published in 1905 by the Florentine Typographical Society, Florence, Italy.<ref>Quoted in Wells 1991, pp. 224–5: name corrected from "Williard Friske".</ref>}}

Peter Parker wrote in 2008:
{{blockquote|One of the pleasures and privileges of belonging to the London Library is wandering through its labyrinthine book-stacks with no particular aim in mind. Anyone who wants to find a particular one of the million or so books or 2,500 periodicals can do so easily enough in the catalogue, but [[serendipity|serendipitous]] browsing is what many members find particularly rewarding. ... One of the best places to do this is in the capacious Science and Miscellaneous section, that glorious omnium gatherum subdivided into such widely divergent subjects as [[Magic (illusion)|Conjuring]] and [[Color blindness|Colour-Blindness]], [[Domestic worker|Domestic Servants]] and [[Duel]]ling, [[Fuel gas|Gas]] and [[Geodesy]], [[Human Sacrifice]] and [[Hypnosis|Hypnotism]], [[Laughter]] and [[Lottery|Lotteries]], [[Pain]] and [[Poultry]], [[Sewage treatment|Sewage Disposal]] and [[Sleepwalking|Somnambulism]], or [[Vinegar]] and [[Vivisection]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Peter |last=Parker |title=A horticultural ramble in the London Library |journal=London Library Magazine |volume=1 |year=2008 |pages=22–25 (22)}}</ref> }}

And Roger Kneebone wrote in 2015:
{{blockquote|Because the Library's [[Library classification|classification]] – especially in Science and Miscellaneous – is so idiosyncratic, it doesn't conform to the systems that populate my own mind. So going in search of a book becomes a journey of discovery in itself.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Roger |last=Kneebone |title=Uncertain Territories |journal=London Library Magazine |volume=28 |year=2015 |pages=14–17 (17)}}</ref> }}

In 1944, the Library lost some 16,000 volumes to bomb damage, and in 1970 its few [[incunable|incunabula]] were sold. With those exceptions, it was formerly library policy to retain virtually all items acquired since its foundation, on the grounds that, as books are never entirely superseded, and therefore never redundant, the collections should not be weeded of material merely because it was old, idiosyncratic or unfashionable.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Murray|first1=Stuart|title=The Library: An Illustrated History|date=2009|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing|location=New York, New York |page=271}}</ref> In 2019, under pressure for space, the decision was taken to reverse this policy, and to introduce a new strategy of withdrawing from the collections some journal and government publication material now available online, some foreign language journals, duplicate copies of books, and other material considered obsolete; and also to move some low-use material to off-site storage.<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection Management |publisher=London Library |url=https://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/ll-collections/collection-management |access-date=24 July 2020 }}</ref>

[[File:London Library stack 5.JPG|thumb|Bookstack in the 1896–98 building.]]