National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland is also known as the copyright or legal deposit library, one of six in the UK. It is not a lending library but stores around 13 million books, rare Scottish manuscripts, maps and cartography, music scores, illustrations, advertising, photographs and more.

The online catalogue contains over four million records of printed material acquired by the Library since 1801 and earlier.

Since 1999, the Library has been answerable to the Scottish Parliament and funded by the Scottish Government.

Background

Founded in the early 1680s, the Advocates Library in Edinburgh was formally opened in 1689. Under the 1710 Copyright Act it was given the legal right to claim a copy of every book published in Britain.

By the 1920s, the upkeep of such a major collection was too much for a private body. With an endowment of £100,000 provided by Sir Alexander Grant of Forres, the library's contents were presented to the nation. The National Library of Scotland was formally constituted by an Act of Parliament in 1925.

Sir Alexander Grant gave a further £100,000 - making his combined donations the equivalent of around £6 million today - for a new library building to be built on George IV Bridge. Government funding was secured which matched Sir Alexander's donation.