House of Lords Library
Encyclopedia
The House of Lords Library is the library
and information resource of the House of Lords
, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
. It provides Members of the House and their staff with books, Parliamentary material and reference and research services.
to house the new Library, which was ready by the end of 1826. Books owned by the offices of the House were placed in the Library, together with the new books that were bought to meet the Select Committee's recommendation. Once the Library had opened, Leary made a list of the modest amount of stock, the vast majority of which consisted of law books, together with volumes of Hansard
and various reference works. Leary was not allowed to buy any more new stock until 1828, although the previous year the third Earl of Rosslyn became the first member of the House to donate books to the Library, a set of House of Lords cases from the early eighteenth century.
Over the next few years the Library grew steadily, although the focus remained firmly on the collection of legal and Parliamentary material. By 1831, the original Library room had become so overcrowded with material that a second room was added to create more space; within another three years this room too was becoming very full. Early in 1834, as space was once again becoming a serious problem, the French Chamber of Peers offered the Library around 1,800 books including parliamentary works, memoirs and histories, in exchange for publications of the British Parliament. The offer of this gift caused consternation, as the Library simply did not have room for it, and Sir Robert Smirke was duly ordered to fit up an additional room as a receptacle for Library stock, while Leary succeeded in delaying the arrival of the French gift. Then, in October 1834, a
fire destroyed most of the old Palace of Westminster. The Library survived the
conflagration, but its threatened books were nevertheless evacuated, passed along a file
of soldiers, and taken to the safety of nearby St Margaret’s Church and the houses of
clerks who lived close by. The Library continued to occupy its old premises in the wake
of the fire, although they were now a temporary home until the new Palace had been
constructed. Space also had to be found for the French gift, which finally arrived in 1836. Seemingly overwhelmed by the arrival of so many new books, Leary managed to get his brother James appointed as Assistant Librarian, in order to give him a helping hand.
More than a decade would pass before the Library moved into its new home, during
which time the Robing Room of the Lords Spiritual was turned into an additional Library
room. The purchase of books declined, not helped by an 1842 resolution of the House that forbade the Librarian from buying any new material without the written order of three members of the Library Committee. In the meantime, the construction of Charles Barry
's new Palace of Westminster had begun, and in 1845 Barry set out his plans for the new Lords Library. They were accepted immediately, and the riverside suite of four rooms that is still in use today was completed by 1848. The books were moved in during the autumn of that year, and shortly afterwards the Library's stock was swollen by the addition of books from the old Irish House of Lords
, including books on Irish history. In 1851, it was decided that the original death warrant of King Charles I
should be deposited in the Library, in order to give it greater protection; it would remain there until the late 1970s.
. The collection was kept together, as Lady Truro had requested, and both the books and the bust were placed in the northernmost room of the Library suite, which is now known as the Truro Room. The bust remains in the room today, but in the late 1970s the collection was moved out and placed in lockable cupboards on the first floor of the Palace, in what is now known as the Truro Corridor. Another former Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham
, also took a great interest around this time in enriching the Library's law collection, and another of the rooms in the main suite, which contains the bulk of the Library's law stock, is now named after him.
Leary died in 1861, and was succeeded as Librarian by James Pulman, who would occupy the office until 1897. Pulman's long tenure was a fairly quiet one for the Library, as he was reluctant to acquire any works that were not law books or Parliamentary papers. One of his Assistant Librarians, W. J. Thoms, did show more initiative and during the 1860s collected a number of valuable historical works. Thoms was a lover of books and founded Notes and Queries, but his attempts to broaden the scope of the Library's collection were discouraged after a few years. Pulman seems to have been so uninterested in expanding the collection beyond the legal and Parliamentary that in 1875 he had to be ordered to resume the purchasing of important historical works.
One notable event in the late nineteenth century was the introduction of electricity to the Library, in about 1893. This replaced gas lighting, which had been installed in the Library at Charles Barry's insistence when it was first constructed; the use of gas had inflicted severe damage to books bound in leather, which was not fully repaired until the 1980s. In 1897, the Library made its first major acquisition for many years with the purchase of about two thousand tracts on Irish affairs, that had once belonged to Sir Robert Peel. These "Peel Tracts" remain in the Library to the present day, and are a valuable source for Irish history in the years leading up to the Union with Great Britain in 1801.
Pulman's retirement in 1897 saw Sandford Arthur Strong take over as Librarian. An art historian and professor of Arabic, Strong was a livelier personality than his predecessor and compiled a new catalogue of the Library's law books. He also oversaw the 1899 bequest to the Library by Sir William Frazer of a large and valuable collection of Gillray
political cartoons, which again have remained in the Library ever since. However, Strong's time as Librarian was cut short in 1904, when his poor health brought about his death at the age of forty.
, the well-known literary critic and bibliophile, and during his decade in charge the Library stock underwent something of a transformation. Gosse thoroughly enjoyed his time as Librarian, as the post gave him the perfect means to pursue his own interests. He purchased books covering a much wider range of subject matter than any of his predecessors, acquiring many works of English and French literature and history. He also bought Greek and Latin works, and had the Library's collection of English Civil War
-era pamphlets lavishly bound together. Most importantly, he compiled the first proper printed catalogue of the Library's non-legal works, which was published in 1908.
Gosse retired in 1914, and it was his successor Arthur Butler who took the Library through the years of the First World War, when he had to manage without his Assistant Librarian Charles Travis Clay, who was away fighting on the Western Front
. After the War, Butler and Clay began the process of creating a new card catalogue for the law books, intended to replace Sandford Strong's earlier catalogue. This project had not advanced far when Butler was forced to resign on health grounds in 1922; Clay succeeded him as Librarian, and would remain in the post for more than three decades.
. From the start of his Librarianship, he also showed himself to be an innovator, rapidly establishing a new Library Committee which provided a forum for him to discuss with members the management of the Library, and future improvements that could be made to it. The Committee still exists today, although it is now known as the Information Committee and has a much wider remit than just the Library, overseeing the use of information across the House. Clay also oversaw the completion of the new law book card catalogue, and the Library's Parliamentary works were re-catalogued on cards at the same time. He was also the first Librarian to arrange the books into subject order on the shelves—until then they had been shelved in a haphazard, disorderly fashion.
Despite the bomb damage sustained by the Palace of Westminster during the Second World War, the Library's stock escaped unscathed. Clay ordered that all the books should be pushed back into the recesses of the shelves, and had the shelves covered in curtains to protect the books from the impact of explosions, particularly from flying glass. On one occasion a bomb hit the Law Lords Corridor and blew out all the Library's windows, but thanks to Clay's precautions no books were damaged. Some of the rarer material, such as manuscripts, was sent to the Bodleian Library
in Oxford for the duration of the War.
Once the War was over, Clay continued to innovate by helping to set up an internal bindery unit in the House of Lords, which led to a reduction in the amount of material that needed to be sent out to external binders. The bindery, which was established in 1946 under the management of the Stationery Office (HMSO), still exists today and is still used by the Library, although it is now run by staff of the British Library. The same year saw the establishment by the Clerk of the Parliaments
of the House of Lords Record Office (now known as the Parliamentary Archives
), set up to look after the archives of both Houses of Parliament in the Victoria Tower. In the years since, a sizeable number of historic and special items that used to be kept in the Library have been transferred to the Archives, where the storage conditions are more suitable for them; the death warrant of Charles I is the most notable example. The Library's own archives are now also stored in the Victoria Tower.
During the final years of Clay's tenure, the Library acquired a valuable gift in the shape of the Viscountess D'Abernon
's bequest of 140 historic volumes from her own private library, including works dating back to the early 16th century. The D'Abernon gift arrived in 1954; two years later, Clay retired and was replaced by Christopher Dobson.
therefore appointed a Working Group of members to consider how this could be achieved. Lord Eccles
, a former minister, was appointed to chair the committee, which included peers from all sides of the House. The report of the Working Group appeared in March 1977, and effectively created the Library service that exists today. The report recommended the creation of a proper research service for members, the acquisition of more books relating to current affairs and the business before the House, the establishment of a separate room, away from the main suite, for the receipt of new material, the establishment of a new centre for enquiries in the Queen's Room, the introduction of IT facilities and, for the first time, the recruitment of librarians with professional qualifications.
Christopher Dobson retired a few months after the report was published, and it therefore fell to his successor, Roger Morgan, to implement the Working Group's recommendations. By the time Morgan himself retired in 1991, great strides forward had been made. Library research clerks were appointed for the first time to provide in-depth research for members, and professional librarians began to be recruited to look after reader and technical services. The old card catalogue was replaced with a microfiche one, produced by sending data to the British Library to turn into a microfiche format, and by 1991 the Library's first online catalogue had been established, together with the automation of book acquisitions and the receipt of periodicals. The 1980s also saw the Library begin to subscribe to online databases such as Lexis/Nexis, which would later move on to the Internet, and the arrival of POLIS, an electronic index of the official deposited papers received by the libraries of both Houses, together with other official publications. This in turn would be superseded by PIMS in 2005.
, twice Foreign Secretary
in the nineteenth century) and elsewhere.
The Library now stretches well beyond the core riverside suite of rooms; its expansion was driven in no small part by the increase in the size of the collections, which by 1991 had grown to around 80,000 bound volumes, plus other documents like reports and pamphlets. Staff work in several offices scattered over the Lords end of the Palace of Westminster, and parts of the collection are stored in the basements, the Committee Corridor and in outside storage facilities at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre and Westminster Archives. In 2001, a branch library was opened across the road in Millbank House, to serve the numerous members and their staff who now had offices over there due to overcrowding in the Palace. This branch library closed in the summer of 2009, and will be replaced in 2011 by a new e-library at 1 Millbank which will boast considerably more space, including more office room for Library staff. Work is also ongoing to bolster the Library's online presence with the creation of a new virtual library, a project that first began to bear some fruit when a virtual tour of the main Library suite was launched in 2008.
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
and information resource of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. It provides Members of the House and their staff with books, Parliamentary material and reference and research services.
Birth, 1826–1856
The Library of the House of Lords came into existence in 1826, following a Select Committee's recommendation that the Clerk Assistant of the House should provide "such a collection of English law books as, in his experience, he may consider useful to the House for reference", together with "certain other books according to a list prepared for that purpose by this Committee". One of the clerks of the House, John Frederick Leary, was appointed as the first Librarian, and the architect Sir John Soane prepared a room in the Palace of WestminsterPalace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
to house the new Library, which was ready by the end of 1826. Books owned by the offices of the House were placed in the Library, together with the new books that were bought to meet the Select Committee's recommendation. Once the Library had opened, Leary made a list of the modest amount of stock, the vast majority of which consisted of law books, together with volumes of Hansard
Hansard
Hansard is the name of the printed transcripts of parliamentary debates in the Westminster system of government. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard, an early printer and publisher of these transcripts.-Origins:...
and various reference works. Leary was not allowed to buy any more new stock until 1828, although the previous year the third Earl of Rosslyn became the first member of the House to donate books to the Library, a set of House of Lords cases from the early eighteenth century.
Over the next few years the Library grew steadily, although the focus remained firmly on the collection of legal and Parliamentary material. By 1831, the original Library room had become so overcrowded with material that a second room was added to create more space; within another three years this room too was becoming very full. Early in 1834, as space was once again becoming a serious problem, the French Chamber of Peers offered the Library around 1,800 books including parliamentary works, memoirs and histories, in exchange for publications of the British Parliament. The offer of this gift caused consternation, as the Library simply did not have room for it, and Sir Robert Smirke was duly ordered to fit up an additional room as a receptacle for Library stock, while Leary succeeded in delaying the arrival of the French gift. Then, in October 1834, a
fire destroyed most of the old Palace of Westminster. The Library survived the
conflagration, but its threatened books were nevertheless evacuated, passed along a file
of soldiers, and taken to the safety of nearby St Margaret’s Church and the houses of
clerks who lived close by. The Library continued to occupy its old premises in the wake
of the fire, although they were now a temporary home until the new Palace had been
constructed. Space also had to be found for the French gift, which finally arrived in 1836. Seemingly overwhelmed by the arrival of so many new books, Leary managed to get his brother James appointed as Assistant Librarian, in order to give him a helping hand.
More than a decade would pass before the Library moved into its new home, during
which time the Robing Room of the Lords Spiritual was turned into an additional Library
room. The purchase of books declined, not helped by an 1842 resolution of the House that forbade the Librarian from buying any new material without the written order of three members of the Library Committee. In the meantime, the construction of Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...
's new Palace of Westminster had begun, and in 1845 Barry set out his plans for the new Lords Library. They were accepted immediately, and the riverside suite of four rooms that is still in use today was completed by 1848. The books were moved in during the autumn of that year, and shortly afterwards the Library's stock was swollen by the addition of books from the old Irish House of Lords
Irish House of Lords
The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from mediaeval times until 1800. It was abolished along with the Irish House of Commons by the Act of Union.-Function:...
, including books on Irish history. In 1851, it was decided that the original death warrant of King Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
should be deposited in the Library, in order to give it greater protection; it would remain there until the late 1970s.
1856–1904
A major addition to the collection occurred in 1856, when the widow of a former Lord Chancellor, Lord Truro, bequeathed the Library her husband's huge collection of 2,896 law books, together with a bust of him sculpted by Henry WeekesHenry Weekes
Henry Weekes, RA was an English sculptor, best known for his portraiture. He was among the most successful British sculptors of the mid-Victorian period....
. The collection was kept together, as Lady Truro had requested, and both the books and the bust were placed in the northernmost room of the Library suite, which is now known as the Truro Room. The bust remains in the room today, but in the late 1970s the collection was moved out and placed in lockable cupboards on the first floor of the Palace, in what is now known as the Truro Corridor. Another former Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham
Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux was a British statesman who became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.As a young lawyer in Scotland Brougham helped to found the Edinburgh Review in 1802 and contributed many articles to it. He went to London, and was called to the English bar in...
, also took a great interest around this time in enriching the Library's law collection, and another of the rooms in the main suite, which contains the bulk of the Library's law stock, is now named after him.
Leary died in 1861, and was succeeded as Librarian by James Pulman, who would occupy the office until 1897. Pulman's long tenure was a fairly quiet one for the Library, as he was reluctant to acquire any works that were not law books or Parliamentary papers. One of his Assistant Librarians, W. J. Thoms, did show more initiative and during the 1860s collected a number of valuable historical works. Thoms was a lover of books and founded Notes and Queries, but his attempts to broaden the scope of the Library's collection were discouraged after a few years. Pulman seems to have been so uninterested in expanding the collection beyond the legal and Parliamentary that in 1875 he had to be ordered to resume the purchasing of important historical works.
One notable event in the late nineteenth century was the introduction of electricity to the Library, in about 1893. This replaced gas lighting, which had been installed in the Library at Charles Barry's insistence when it was first constructed; the use of gas had inflicted severe damage to books bound in leather, which was not fully repaired until the 1980s. In 1897, the Library made its first major acquisition for many years with the purchase of about two thousand tracts on Irish affairs, that had once belonged to Sir Robert Peel. These "Peel Tracts" remain in the Library to the present day, and are a valuable source for Irish history in the years leading up to the Union with Great Britain in 1801.
Pulman's retirement in 1897 saw Sandford Arthur Strong take over as Librarian. An art historian and professor of Arabic, Strong was a livelier personality than his predecessor and compiled a new catalogue of the Library's law books. He also oversaw the 1899 bequest to the Library by Sir William Frazer of a large and valuable collection of Gillray
James Gillray
James Gillray , was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.- Early life :He was born in Chelsea...
political cartoons, which again have remained in the Library ever since. However, Strong's time as Librarian was cut short in 1904, when his poor health brought about his death at the age of forty.
1904–1922
Strong's successor was Edmund GosseEdmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...
, the well-known literary critic and bibliophile, and during his decade in charge the Library stock underwent something of a transformation. Gosse thoroughly enjoyed his time as Librarian, as the post gave him the perfect means to pursue his own interests. He purchased books covering a much wider range of subject matter than any of his predecessors, acquiring many works of English and French literature and history. He also bought Greek and Latin works, and had the Library's collection of English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
-era pamphlets lavishly bound together. Most importantly, he compiled the first proper printed catalogue of the Library's non-legal works, which was published in 1908.
Gosse retired in 1914, and it was his successor Arthur Butler who took the Library through the years of the First World War, when he had to manage without his Assistant Librarian Charles Travis Clay, who was away fighting on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
. After the War, Butler and Clay began the process of creating a new card catalogue for the law books, intended to replace Sandford Strong's earlier catalogue. This project had not advanced far when Butler was forced to resign on health grounds in 1922; Clay succeeded him as Librarian, and would remain in the post for more than three decades.
1922–1956
Charles Travis Clay, Librarian from 1922, was a keen historian, well respected for his work in editing medieval charters, and he was eventually elected a Fellow of the British AcademyBritish Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
. From the start of his Librarianship, he also showed himself to be an innovator, rapidly establishing a new Library Committee which provided a forum for him to discuss with members the management of the Library, and future improvements that could be made to it. The Committee still exists today, although it is now known as the Information Committee and has a much wider remit than just the Library, overseeing the use of information across the House. Clay also oversaw the completion of the new law book card catalogue, and the Library's Parliamentary works were re-catalogued on cards at the same time. He was also the first Librarian to arrange the books into subject order on the shelves—until then they had been shelved in a haphazard, disorderly fashion.
Despite the bomb damage sustained by the Palace of Westminster during the Second World War, the Library's stock escaped unscathed. Clay ordered that all the books should be pushed back into the recesses of the shelves, and had the shelves covered in curtains to protect the books from the impact of explosions, particularly from flying glass. On one occasion a bomb hit the Law Lords Corridor and blew out all the Library's windows, but thanks to Clay's precautions no books were damaged. Some of the rarer material, such as manuscripts, was sent to the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
in Oxford for the duration of the War.
Once the War was over, Clay continued to innovate by helping to set up an internal bindery unit in the House of Lords, which led to a reduction in the amount of material that needed to be sent out to external binders. The bindery, which was established in 1946 under the management of the Stationery Office (HMSO), still exists today and is still used by the Library, although it is now run by staff of the British Library. The same year saw the establishment by the Clerk of the Parliaments
Clerk of the Parliaments
The Clerk of the Parliaments is the chief clerk of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The position has existed since at least 1315, and duties include preparing the minutes of Lords proceedings, advising on proper parliamentary procedure and pronouncing the Royal Assent...
of the House of Lords Record Office (now known as the Parliamentary Archives
Parliamentary Archives
The Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom preserves and makes available to public the records of the House of Lords and House of Commons back to 1497, as well as some 200 other collections of Parliamentary interest...
), set up to look after the archives of both Houses of Parliament in the Victoria Tower. In the years since, a sizeable number of historic and special items that used to be kept in the Library have been transferred to the Archives, where the storage conditions are more suitable for them; the death warrant of Charles I is the most notable example. The Library's own archives are now also stored in the Victoria Tower.
During the final years of Clay's tenure, the Library acquired a valuable gift in the shape of the Viscountess D'Abernon
Helen Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon
Helen Venetia Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon was a British peeress, socialite and diarist.Helen was the daughter of William Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham, of Ryedale and Mabel Violet Graham, born at their estate of Duncombe Park in Helmsley, North Yorkshire, England...
's bequest of 140 historic volumes from her own private library, including works dating back to the early 16th century. The D'Abernon gift arrived in 1954; two years later, Clay retired and was replaced by Christopher Dobson.
1956–1977
Dobson, Librarian from 1956, would oversee a major redecoration of the Library between 1969 and 1972. During that time, the main Library suite had its woodwork cleaned and restored, and the panels above the shelves, which featured the arms of the Lord Chief Justices of England, were repainted. In 1975, the Library also expanded its space by taking over the Salisbury Room, just south of the main suite, which had previously been used as a committee room. Dobson also had to deal with a steady increase in demand among members for the services of the Library, particularly research services. Traditionally, the Library's chief focus had been on supporting the judicial work of the House, rather than the legislative work, but things began to change in 1958, when life peers sat in the Lords for the first time. There was more of a demand for the Library's services from the life peers, and as their numbers grew over the next twenty years so did the work of the Library in trying to support them. The judicial focus of the Library was also diluted by the move of the Law Lords from offices very near to the Library to the far side of the Palace at the start of the 1970s, which led to the establishment of a small, separate collection for the exclusive use of the Law Lords.After 1977
By 1976, it was clear that the Library's services were in need of modernisation, and the Leader of the HouseLeader of the House of Lords
The Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council,...
therefore appointed a Working Group of members to consider how this could be achieved. Lord Eccles
David Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles
David McAdam Eccles, 1st Baron Eccles and 1st Viscount Eccles, CH, KCVO, MP, PC was an English Conservative politician....
, a former minister, was appointed to chair the committee, which included peers from all sides of the House. The report of the Working Group appeared in March 1977, and effectively created the Library service that exists today. The report recommended the creation of a proper research service for members, the acquisition of more books relating to current affairs and the business before the House, the establishment of a separate room, away from the main suite, for the receipt of new material, the establishment of a new centre for enquiries in the Queen's Room, the introduction of IT facilities and, for the first time, the recruitment of librarians with professional qualifications.
Christopher Dobson retired a few months after the report was published, and it therefore fell to his successor, Roger Morgan, to implement the Working Group's recommendations. By the time Morgan himself retired in 1991, great strides forward had been made. Library research clerks were appointed for the first time to provide in-depth research for members, and professional librarians began to be recruited to look after reader and technical services. The old card catalogue was replaced with a microfiche one, produced by sending data to the British Library to turn into a microfiche format, and by 1991 the Library's first online catalogue had been established, together with the automation of book acquisitions and the receipt of periodicals. The 1980s also saw the Library begin to subscribe to online databases such as Lexis/Nexis, which would later move on to the Internet, and the arrival of POLIS, an electronic index of the official deposited papers received by the libraries of both Houses, together with other official publications. This in turn would be superseded by PIMS in 2005.
The Library today
David Jones took over as Librarian in 1991, and during his time in charge the number of staff in the Library continued to grow, with the recruitment of more research clerks, librarians and secretarial staff. In 1976, the Library had just ten members of staff, whereas by 2009 there were well over thirty. The Lords itself underwent a historic change in these years, with the removal of the majority of the hereditary peers from membership of the House in 1999. In the years since, the Library has served a membership that now largely consists of working life peers, and its services have been very well-used. When David Jones retired in 2006, the Library underwent its own change by becoming part of a wider Department of Information Services, headed by the new Librarian, Elizabeth Hallam Smith, and also consisting of the Parliamentary Archives and the House of Lords Information Office. The Library retains its own identity, however, and in recent years it has embraced the possibilities of the digital age, acquiring its own intranet site and subscribing to a large number of e-journals and other web resources, while continuing in its traditional role of providing a repository for Parliamentary papers. The Library's law collection also remains very large, though the long-standing connection with the Law Lords was finally severed in the autumn of 2009 when the Law Lords moved to the new Supreme Court, taking their own library with them. The Lords Library, however, still maintains its main law collection in the Brougham Room as a resource for all members. The collection today is also very strong on works of history, politics and biography, and many of the Library's more historic works are still on display in the Derby Room (named after the 15th Earl of DerbyEdward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby
Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby KG, PC, FRS , known as Lord Stanley from 1844 to 1869, was a British statesman...
, twice Foreign Secretary
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...
in the nineteenth century) and elsewhere.
The Library now stretches well beyond the core riverside suite of rooms; its expansion was driven in no small part by the increase in the size of the collections, which by 1991 had grown to around 80,000 bound volumes, plus other documents like reports and pamphlets. Staff work in several offices scattered over the Lords end of the Palace of Westminster, and parts of the collection are stored in the basements, the Committee Corridor and in outside storage facilities at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre and Westminster Archives. In 2001, a branch library was opened across the road in Millbank House, to serve the numerous members and their staff who now had offices over there due to overcrowding in the Palace. This branch library closed in the summer of 2009, and will be replaced in 2011 by a new e-library at 1 Millbank which will boast considerably more space, including more office room for Library staff. Work is also ongoing to bolster the Library's online presence with the creation of a new virtual library, a project that first began to bear some fruit when a virtual tour of the main Library suite was launched in 2008.
Librarians of the House of Lords
- 1826 – John Frederick Leary
- 1861 – James Pulman
- 1897 – Sandford Arthur Strong
- 1904 – Edmund GosseEdmund GosseSir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...
- 1914 – Arthur Butler
- 1922 – Charles Travis Clay
- 1956 – Christopher Dobson
- 1977 – Roger Morgan
- 1991 – David L. Jones
- 2006 – Elizabeth Hallam Smith
See also
- Parliamentary ArchivesParliamentary ArchivesThe Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom preserves and makes available to public the records of the House of Lords and House of Commons back to 1497, as well as some 200 other collections of Parliamentary interest...
- House of Commons LibraryHouse of Commons LibraryThe House of Commons Library is the library and information resource of the lower house of the British Parliament. It has adopted the phrase "Contributing to a well-informed democracy" as a summary of its mission statement.- History :...
- Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, Congressional Research ServiceCongressional Research ServiceThe Congressional Research Service , known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a...
(USA) - Library of ParliamentLibrary of ParliamentThe Library of Parliament is the main information repository and research resource for the Parliament of Canada...
(Canada)