The British Library website is a fun and informative place for book-lovers to poke around and spend a couple hours. This site has been a recent favorite of mine, particularly the Online Gallery.
This website targets an audience of adults and teenagers with an interest in books, history, religion, anthropology, etc., but it keeps the information simple and straightforward, so you don’t have to be an academic or a specialist to enjoy it.
Regarding content, I think the site does a great job of attracting public attention with extensive and high-quality visual and audio material, and then provides in-depth background information for those who are interested. The site is organized into themed exhibits and guided tours, so you can focus on a specific subject.
The designers have consistently taken miniatures, drawings, paintings, maps, and other items from the Library collection to create page backgrounds and illustrations. I’m not a fan of their opening page, however – it crams a lot of links into a small space, but visually it doesn’t do justice to the rest of the site.
Navigation is fairly simple once you’ve chosen an exhibit or gallery to view, although downloading some of the files can be slow. Actually finding the exhibit you want may be a bit more difficult, given the amount of content on this site, but once you’re in, you’re set.
Anyhow, many of you library folks have probably seen this site, but if not, take a look, it’s worth a viewing!
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