London

The Horniman Museum – ‘Utsavam: Music from India’

London has 250 museums and galleries including world famous national museums, 26 local authority services and a diverse range of independent specialist collections.

The 385 public libraries spread throughout the city are open for almost 16,000 hours every week, and the capital is home to nearly a third of all the UK’s archives, holding over 20,000 cubic metres of local authority records alone.

Paxman opens shopping centre libary

The new £2m library at Westfield Shopping Centre was built and fitted out at the centre's owners at their own expense as part of a

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Hands on Horniman

The Horniman Museum, in London, has developed a wide-ranging programme of community engagement with hands-on handling of the...

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London's first low carbon library

The new Elm Park Library, which scooped a sustainable design and construction award in the Havering Business Awards, will be the

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Docklands library at 'heart of buzzing town centre'

A library in the shape of an inverted pyramid will partly overhang the Canada Water basin in London.

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Camden's refugee work placement

Camden's innovative Refugee Work Experience Placement programme has enabled refugees to gain skills that will help future career

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Archive works with teacher trainees

A ongoing scheme that placed teacher trainees at the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) has encouraged participants to...

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Check out Westminster

How a “supermarket” style library service complete with check-in/check-out kiosks attracted local time-pressed office workers

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Whitechapel Gallery transforms archive

After a refurbishment taking two years, The Whitechapel Gallery has reopened to the public with more space for exhibitions and...

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Working Lives of the Thames Gateway

A project which has been recording the memories of workers in London’s Thames Gateway has been praised by participants, volunteers

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Latest News

Libraries' role in 2012 volunteering

Libraries will be part of the London 2012 volunteer programme, Games Maker. A programme which is set to be the largest post-war volunteer recruitment campaign in the UK looking for up to 70,000 dedicated and inspirational volunteers representative of the diversity of London and the UK for a wide variety of roles. Continue reading

  • Related links

  • london archives

    Nearly a third of all UK archives are in London, held by over 600 organisations. These archive collections encompass a vast variety of documents, photographs, maps, plans, film, sound recordings and objects, from funeral caskets to false teeth.

  • london libraries

    There are 385 public libraries plus 23 mobile libraries in London, and they can be found right across the city. They are open for almost 16,000 hours every week; that’s 800,000 hours every year and 95% of Londoners live within a mile of a library.

  • london museums

    London is home to 15 national museums, which have an international profile and dominate the sector in terms of size of collections, resources and visitor numbers. It is also home to 11 of the 62 museums (nearly 20%) holding Designated collections.

  • mla staff list

    Staff at MLA are based in offices in London and Birmingham.

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Sector Statistics

Volunteering Numbers statisticsNo. of Public Libraries in England (2008-09)Stats widget