[BuRPEE] MODERN PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THEIR METHODS Z 
Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Monckton Milnes, and other great 
men of the day. 
Of the libraries of the United Kingdom, the British Museum 
stands head and shoulders above all others. It is the national library 
of Great Britain and Ireland—of the British Empire in fact; and in 
a still broader sense it may be said to be the library par excellence of 
the whole English-speaking world. It is governed by a board of 
Trustees or Directors, divided into three groups: official, representing 
State departments and great national institutions; elected, consisting 
of men of the highest standing in literature, science and art; and 
family trustees, representing the families which have contributed very 
important collections to the Museum such as the Sloans, Cottonian and 
Townley. 
For the first sixty years of the Museum’s existence, the funds 
available for purchases and management, outside of the initial funds 
and gifts, did not average £500 per annum. Later, through the untir- 
ing efforts of Sir Anthony Panizzi, the famous head of the Museum, 
the Government were induced to increase the annual grants, for a 
time, to £10,000. 
The British Museum at first consisted of three departments,— 
printed books, manuscripts, and natural history; now there are 
twelve,— four covering natural history, four relating to antiquities, 
and four literary, 1.e., printed books, manuscripts, prints and drawings, 
and Oriental printed books and manuscripts. 
The library now consists of about 2,000,000 volumes, the largest 
‘ collection in the world, with the possible exception of the Bibliothèque 
Nationale at Paris. The additions of printed books of all descriptions 
average 46,000 annually. Some forty years ago, Mr. Watts, one of 
the most learned of the Museum’s librarians, made the following 
striking statement, illustrating the unequalled scope of the Museum 
library in every department of human knowledge, and in all 
languages: — “The Museum is now supposed to possess the best 
Russian library in existence out of Russia, the best Hungarian out 
oi Hungary, the best Dutch out of Holland; in short, the best library 
in every European language out of the territory in which that language 
is vernacular. The books are in every case the standard books of 
the language — the laws, the histories, the biographies, the works on 
topography and local history, the poets and novelists in most esteem; 
in short, all that moulds or paints the life and manners of a nation, 
and which now a student of any European language need travel no 
further than to the reading-room of the Museum to see and make 
use of.” 
