The British Museum reopened its Reading Room for general visitors on 1 July following the introduction of ticketed tours last year.
British Museum chair George Osborne made a commitment to reopen the Reading Room, which had been closed since 2013, in November 2022.
The Reading Room, which first opened in 1854 and currently houses the museum's archive, was restored as part of the £100m Great Court redevelopment. When the project was completed in 2000, the Reading Room was made available to all museum visitors for the first time.
At the time, it housed an information centre, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre, and a collection of 25,000 books, catalogues and other printed material that focused on the world cultures represented in the museum. Most of the books that were in the library were moved to the British Library's purpose-built building in St Pancras in 1997.
From 2007, the Reading Room was used for special exhibitions. The first exhibition held there was The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army (13 September 2007–6 April 2008).
The Reading Room was no longer needed as an exhibition space when the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre was opened at the museum in 2014.
The Reading Room was designed by British architect Sydney Smirke (1798–1877). The space, which was constructed from cast iron, concrete and glass, has a diameter of 42.6m and was inspired by the domed Pantheon in Rome.
Forgive me if this is a pointless comment, and there are plans I don’t know about, I am a very new member! Can I ask why the wonderful reading room cannot be used again as a reading/working space? It doesn’t need to be a library for this. As someone who used to love working there, I was excited to read about it reopening, but it seems to be just ‘open’ for people to shuffle in and look into a desultory store room. There must be lots of students and researchers who use the museum who would also use this space and ordinary members like me who would take a book and read for an hour!
Thanks
NS