Letter: Moving the King's Library

MAY we reply to Brian Lang's letter (23 March) concerning the dismantling of the King's Library at the British Museum and the transfer of the books collected by George III from the magnificent room specifically designed by Sir Robert Smirke to contain them, to the new British Library at St Pancras? On a major heritage issue such as this, an exception must be made to the general rule that the national collection of books should be housed together in one place.

While many great libraries around the world are housed in distinguished buildings, there are all too few instances where a collection of books created by one individual survive intact in the period architectural setting designed for them. King George III's library remains in the neo-classical room designed for its reception and is thus a remarkable document of the taste of the Enlightenment.

Mr Lang makes much of the need to benefit researchers by having all the British Library's books together on one site, but anyone involved with specialist research is accustomed to moving from library to archive in different places and we cannot believe that this would be an unacceptable burden on those specialist scholars to whom the King's Library is of interest.

Finally, Mr Lang argues that the room at the British Museum cannot provide the proper environmental conditions and that, left there, the books of the King's Library will disintegrate. This is a spurious argument and many libraries around the world manage to provide proper environmental conditions in historic interiors. It takes money and commitment. In any case, the British Museum intends to borrow other collections of antiquarian books to fill up the empty bookcases. As the Museum will therefore be obliged to undertake a complete restoration of the King's Library one must presume that a part of this process will be the provision of the right environmental conditions for period books.

Let us hope that eventually an enlightened approach to the management of our heritage assets will prevail and that in due course the books of the King's Library can be returned to their purpose-built room at the British Museum.

GEORGE SAYN; Lord NAPIER and ETTRICK; JOHN JULIUS NORWICH; Lord POOLE; HANNAH WOLFSON STEINBERG

London W1