St Bride Library
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St Bride Library (formerly known as St Bride Printing Library and St Bride Typographical Library) is a library in London primarily devoted to printing, book arts, typography and graphic design. The Library is housed within St Bride Foundation Institute in Bride Lane, a small street leading south of Fleet Street near its intersection with New Bridge Street, in the City of London. The location lies in the heart of the area traditionally synonymous with the British Press and once, but no longer, home to many of London's newspaper publishing houses. The Library is named after the nearby church, St Bride's Church, the so-called "Cathedral of Fleet Street".[1]
St Bride Library opened on the 20th of November, 1895 as a technical library for the printing school and printing trades. The Library remained, as the school relocated in 1922 to become what is presently known as the London College of Communication.[2] The Library's collection has grown to incorporate a vast amount of printing-related material numbering about 50,000 books and pamphlets, in addition to back issues of some 3500 serials and numerous artefacts.[3] Among its extensive collection the library houses: an Eric Gill collection; a William Addison Dwiggins collection; a Beatrice Warde collection; types of the Oxford University Press; and punches of the Caslon and Figgins foundries.[3]
