The Warburg Institute Library included in OEDb’s Top 25 Libraries That Changed the World
The Online Education Database (OEDb) has compiled a list of the top 25 libraries that have played a role in both changing the shape of libraries and the world completely. The Warburg Institute Library is listed at no 21.
In introducing this list, the OEDb describes libraries as the embodiment of “the idea that education and culture exist as a basic human right, not the exclusive domain of the privileged elite” and as such, “play an integral role in keeping the species moving forward and ensuring the survival of important slices of history, culture, philosophy, science, math, and, obviously, literature”.
After the rise of the Nazi régime in 1933, the then Warburg Institute director Fritz Saxl accepted the invitation of an adhoc committee to transfer the Institute to London where, with the support of Lord Lee of Fareham, Samuel Courtauld and the Warburg family, it was installed in Thames House in 1934, moving to the Imperial Institute Buildings, South Kensington, in 1937. In 1944 the Institute was incorporated in the University of London.
The Library holds an open-access collection of international importance in the humanities, and its over 350,000 volumes make it the largest collection in the world focused on Renaissance studies and the history of the classical tradition. It joins other global greats in the list including the British Library, the Library of Alexandria, and the New York Public Library.
