The Caird Library

The Caird Library, located at the Greenwich National Maritime Museum, is one of the largest maritime museums in the world. The founding collection was donated by Sir James Caird and contained charts, journals and rare books, among others. The library focuses on Immigration, Piracy, Astronomy, Exploration, Navigation and Naval Architecture. The library is a public library that opened in the 1930's but the library is in the process of building a new facility with larger on site storage.
The library contains over 100,000 modern history, post 1850, and over 8000 rare, pre-1850 books. It also houses over 40,000 periodicals and journals, along with over 70,000 items in its catalog archive. The main library employees 12 staff members, 2 E-librarians and a person behind the scenes. The seating area is laid out in a manner so that the rare book viewing can be seen by the main desk at all times.

This item is a medical journal that was used aboard the Bounty.

Above is the wooden covered book collection that tells the story of the HMS Royal George. Also in the collection, along with many other unique and rare items is a document from the HMS Caledonia listing the individuals on board by profession and nationality.

Visit the Caird Library on the web at www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/library.