Editing National library (section)

==== United Kingdom ====
[[File:Sir Hans Sloane, an engraving from a portrait by T. Murray.jpg|thumb|upright|Sir [[Hans Sloane]]'s collection of books and manuscripts was bequeathed to the [[British Museum]].]]
The first true national library was founded in 1753 as part of the [[British Museum]].
This new institution was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public and aiming to collect everything.<ref name="world and its people">{{Cite book|last=Dunton|first=Larkin|title=The World and Its People|url=https://archive.org/details/worldanditspeop05duntgoog|publisher=Silver, Burdett|year=1896|page=[https://archive.org/details/worldanditspeop05duntgoog/page/n46 38]}}</ref> The museum's foundations lay in the will of the physician and naturalist [[Hans Sloane|Sir Hans Sloane]], who gathered an enviable [[cabinet of curiosities|collection of curiosities]] over his lifetime which he bequeathed to the nation for £20,000.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fathom.com/course/21701728/session1.html|title=Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum|publisher=Fathom|access-date=4 July 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102202555/http://www.fathom.com/course/21701728/session1.html|archive-date=2 January 2010}}</ref>
[[File:Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa - panoramio.jpg|thumb|[[National Library of South Africa]], Cape Town branch]]

Sloane's collection included some 40,000 printed books and 7,000 [[manuscript]]s, as well as [[Old master print|prints]] and drawings.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/history/general_history.aspx|title=General history|work=British Museum|date=14 June 2010|access-date=4 July 2010}}</ref> The [[British Museum Act 1753]] also incorporated the [[Cotton library]] and the [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer|Harleian library]]. These were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library, assembled by various [[British monarchy|British monarchs]].<ref>Letter to Charles Long (1823), BMCE115/3,10. Scrapbooks and illustrations of the Museum. (Wilson, David, M.) (2002). The British Museum: A History. London: The British Museum Press, pg 346</ref>

The first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759,<ref>[http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=33121&amid=30262261 The British Museum Opened], History Today</ref> and in 1757, King [[George II of Great Britain|George II]] granted it the right to a copy of every book published in the country, thereby ensuring that the museum's library would expand indefinitely.

[[File:The North Prospect of Mountague House JamesSimonc1715.jpg|thumb|[[Montagu House, Bloomsbury|Montagu House]], seat of the [[British Museum|British Library]], founded in 1753]]

[[Anthony Panizzi]] became the Principal Librarian at the British Museum in 1856, where he oversaw its modernization. During his tenure, the library's holdings increased from 235,000 to 540,000 volumes, making it the largest library in the world at the time. Its famous circular [[British Museum Reading Room|Reading Room]] was opened in 1857. Panizzi undertook the creation of a new catalogue, based on the "Ninety-One Cataloguing Rules" (1841) which he devised with his assistants. These rules served as the basis for all subsequent [[library catalog|catalogue]] rules of the 19th and 20th centuries, and are at the origins of the [[International Standard Bibliographic Description|ISBD]] and of digital cataloguing elements such as [[Dublin Core]].