Records of the Science Reference Information Service, and its predecessors

The Science Reference Library is now part of the British Library Reference Division. It dates back to the Patent Office Library which was set up by the Board of Trade in 1885 as a public reference library of the physical sciences and associated technologies. In 1951 the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy recommended that it should be developed as a National Reference Library of Science and Invention; and in 1960 the British Museum assumed responsibility for the Patent Office Library on the understanding that its own library collections of scientific and technical literature should be available to the reconstituted library. In 1966 the National Reference Library of Science and Invention was formally incorporated as part of the British Museum Department of Printed Books. It became known as the Science Reference Library in 1973 and at the same time became a separate department of the newly constituted British Library Reference Division in its own right.