Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections, British Library

The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word and ambient recordings. It holds more than six million recordings, including over a million discs and 200,000 tapes. These include commercial record releases (chiefly from the UK), radio broadcasts (many from the BBC Sound Archive), and privately made recordings.

The Harleian Library, Harley Collection, Harleian Collection and other variants (Latin: Bibliotheca Harleiana) is one of the main "closed" collections (namely, historic collections to which new material is no longer added) of the British Library in London, formerly the library of the British Museum. The collection comprises 7,660 manuscripts, including 2,200 illuminated manuscripts, more than 14,000 original legal documents; and more than 500 rolls. It was assembled by Robert Harley (1661–1724) and his son Edward (1689–1741). In 1753, it was purchased for £10,000 by the British government. Together with the collections of Sir Robert Cotton (the Cotton library) and Hans Sloane (the Sloane library) it formed the basis of the British Museum's collection of manuscripts, which were transferred to the new British Library in 1973.The collection contains illuminated manuscripts spanning the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. There are important early British manuscripts, many from Western Europe, and several Byzantine manuscripts in Greek and other languages.

In 1757, the actor David Garrick commissioned the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac to make a full-size marble statue of William Shakespeare for Garrick's octagonal Temple to Shakespeare, erected near his villa beside the River Thames at Hampton, to the west of London. The sculpture cost 300 guineas and was installed at Garrick's temple in 1758; it remained there until it was bequeathed to the British Museum along with Garrick's books in 1779. The sculpture was transferred to the new British Library in 2005, where it is displayed on a new travertine plinth beside the main staircase in the main entrance hall. The sculpture depicts Shakespeare standing, leaning with his right arm on a lectern covered with a fringed cloth. His right foot is forward and body leaning to the right, with his hips thrust out awkwardly to the left. His right hand is holding a quill pen while the left hand is raised to his chin with the index finger extended along the jawline, as if in thought. The subject is balding but bearded, with ringlets of hair at his temples. Rather than Tudor costume, he is wearing anachronous 17th century "Van Dyke" dress, including a shirt with an elaborate lace collar and cuffs; a long jacket with many buttons, but unbuttoned over the lower body; short trousers with fringed legs; stockings and heeled shoes; all draped in a billowing cloak. The art historian Margaret Whinney describes Roubiliac's bust as having "Van-Dyckian elegance" and notes that "he has greatly ennobled the head".

The Lawrence Durrell Collection is a special collection of books and periodicals by, about or associated with the novelist and poet Lawrence Durrell, donated to the British Library by Alan G. Thomas.

The Lady Eccles Oscar Wilde Collection is a special collection of materials by, about and associated with the novelist and playwright Oscar Wilde, donated to the British Library by Lady Eccles.

The Dexter Collection of Dickensiana is a special collection of materials by, about and associated with the novelist Charles Dickens, donated to the British Library by John Furber Dexter.

The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library is the literary archive of Harold Pinter, which Pinter had first placed "on permanent loan" in the British Library in September 1993 and which became a permanent acquisition in December 2007.

The India Office Records are a very large collection of documents relating to the administration of India from 1600 to 1947, the period spanning Company and British rule in India. The archive is held in London by the British Library and is publicly accessible. It is complemented further by the India Papers collection at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. The records come from four main sources: the English and later British East India Company (1600–1858), the Board of Control (1784–1858), the India Office (1858–1947), and the Burma Office (1937–48). The collection also includes records from many smaller related institutions. Overall, the collection is made up of approximately 175,000 items, including official publications and records, manuscripts, photographs, printed maps and private papers. These items take up approximately nine miles of shelving units.

The British Library Preservation Advisory Centre, formerly the National Preservation Office, was a British organisation for the development and awareness of preservation management within libraries and archives in the UK and Ireland. The centre closed in 2014.

The Alan Turing Institute is the United Kingdom's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, founded in 2015. It is named after Alan Turing, the British mathematician and computing pioneer.

West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song was a major four-month exhibition at the British Library in London — the first of its kind in the UK to explore in detail the cultural history of the region, through literature, artefacts, art, music and performance — which ran from 16 October 2015 to 16 February 2016. It has been described as "undoubtedly the most ambitious exhibition to date at the British Library".

The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts once owned by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631), an antiquarian and bibliophile. It later became the basis of what is now the British Library, which still holds the collection. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, many priceless and ancient manuscripts that had belonged to the monastic libraries began to be disseminated among various owners, many of whom were unaware of the cultural value of the manuscripts. Cotton's skill lay in finding, purchasing and preserving these ancient documents. The leading scholars of the era, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, and James Ussher, came to use Sir Robert's library. Richard James acted as his librarian. The library is of special importance for having preserved the only copy of several works, such as happened with Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.