We will be undertaking an essential programme of major remedial works on the central lift this summer to address ongoing issues. To facilitate this, the lift will be decommissioned and out of use from 15 July until the end of August.

We appreciate the inconvenience, particularly for members who are unable to use the stairs. However, it is essential that this work is completed; members will be aware of issues with the lift over several years and if we do not fix the issue now it may break, leading to an outage of over three months while we wait for parts and repair. This work will ensure that we can continue maintaining step-free access to the majority of the Library’s collection and workspaces.
 
Most of the work will be carried out inside the lift shaft and on the 6th floor of the Central Stack in the book stack area, but noise disruption will be kept to a minimum to cause least disruption to members. 
 

The following facilities and routes will be affected during this time and members are reminded that the request service remains available:

• There will be no step-free access to the accessible toilet facilities
• The T S Eliot House lift will be available and allow access up to Floor 2 of the Central Stack
• The Art Reading Room will be a wheelchair accessible space and can be accessed through the T S Eliot House staff entrance and by taking the T S Eliot House lift to Floor 1.

Should you need help accessing the collection, please speak to staff in the Issue Hall or contact us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (020) 7766 4743.

We apologise once again for the inconvenience. Thank you for your co-operation.

A reminder that as part of phase one of the recently announced Building Connections Campaign, we will be carrying out a project to make changes to the collections held in our basement.

In addition to creating a back-of-house catering kitchen to support Library events and venue hire, we plan to create a space to more securely house the Library’s Archive, a selection of older and more fragile books from our open shelves, and an invigilation space for members to view items held in closed access.

In order to create the space for this project, we need to remove some of our collection to off-site store.These are proposed to be the foreign language periodicals and foreign language society publications held in the basement, together with some periodical titles that have been cancelled since 2010.

A full list of the titles proposed to be moved to off-site store is available at the Issue Desk or by email.

Members may request a copy of the list and comment on these proposals by Friday 28 June, by contacting us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The scheme is a unique opportunity which offers state schools fully subsidised school membership of the Library for the full year. With its unparalleled collection of around 1 million volumes spanning 200 subject areas, unlimited access to around 1,000 online journals and beautiful workspaces, membership is a brilliant resource for any school, particularly for the EPQ and independent research.

We currently have over 60 schools in membership, many of which use the Library on a regular basis and benefit from bespoke support with study and research needs, ranging from EPQ group study sessions organised by our knowledgeable Librarian staff, to help with the research needs of individual students. Here’s what one of our school’s members says about their membership:

“The London Library is an amazing resource for our students and offers them access to resources that they would not usually be able to use, which helps with developing their independent study skills for university. Having access to new resources allows students to widen their interpretations in coursework and in their studies in general which will help in their studies, and could even help to improve their grades."

And here's what one of our subsidised school's pupils thinks of the Library:

"I really enjoyed my time in the London Library. Not only was it helpful to my research, but it was amazing to explore such a unique place. 

There were books about absolutely everything. It was really easy to find many books about a single subject and I found these books extremely useful to my research."

Applications close on Monday 1 July 2024. 

Find out more