Talk:List of largest libraries

British Library
Why does The British Library come above The Library of Congress in the table? The Library of Congress has 1.8 million more items! I'm British myself, so I'm not pointing this out as an act of patriotism! Any ideas? - TALL e N talk 19:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Even more interesting, the Library of Congress collection requires 838 miles of shelf space vs. 388 miles for the British Library. It is also interesting that even the British Library website isn't consistent about the number of items it has - 150 or 170 million. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.48.18 (talk) 14:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I noticed this too (haha, more than two years later), and it is still not fixed. Maybe there is an actual reason? William2001(talk) 03:14, 15 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I've updated this to provide a range, supported by internal references. I'm not sure there is a clear number one - except when you add in its digital holdings I assume the BL would come above the LOC. However that also brings it into the domain of the Internet Archive and other digital repositories, including those of other national libraries which might then take the top place(s). Conan The Librarian (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:02, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

ALA source
This source may be useful for information on libraries in the US:
 * &ldquo;The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held&rdquo;, American Library Association website, October 2012

Note that: 50.181.30.121 (talk) 01:18, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) The ALA list shows volumes, not items.  Should this article gain a &ldquo;volumes&rdquo; column?
 * 2) Research libraries and public lending libraries use different standards for counting volumes.  Should this article gain two &ldquo;volumes&rdquo; columns?

British Library Source
The British Library itself states that it has 150 million items on its quick facts page. The fact used in the reference, listing it at 170 million items, cannot be confirmed.The fact that the British Library website is contradictory should give us reason to question this number. The Library of Congress itself calls itself the largest library in the world.Petercannon usf (talk) 02:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

As I have pointed out on The British Library's talk page, the institution's website is not at all contradictory. The website states, 'Our collection of around 170 million items includes some of the most iconic treasures from a variety of cultures...' while claiming that 'the collection includes well over 150 million items, in most known languages'. Note that the second page states WELL OVER 150 million items. Unless we decide to be rid of these sorts of comparisons altogether, it seems we really must stop changing this unless new information becomes available. Curzmg (talk) 10:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It also has to be pointed out that the numbers on the BL Facts and figures page haven't been updated at least since early 2015, when it already had "well over 150 million items". It's not at all unlikely that the page is simply not up to date, and that the more recent pages show a more accurate figure of 170+ million items. Whether some library (such as LoC) subjectively claims they are the largest in the world or not should bear no weight (given their obvious bias), unless they provide sources that compare all the major libraries. 129.130.18.97 (talk) 22:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)


 * See my note above in BL section, I've updated to a range with links. The previous figures were unsupported I think. Conan The Librarian (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:03, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100620000018/http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de:80/ueber-uns/fuer-forschung-und-kultur/zahlen-und-fakten.html to http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/ueber-uns/fuer-forschung-und-kultur/zahlen-und-fakten.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20130803003040/http://publications.hul.harvard.edu/images/stories/pdfs/ar09.overallstats4.pdf to http://publications.hul.harvard.edu/images/stories/pdfs/ar09.overallstats4.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100727190527/http://publications.hul.harvard.edu/ar0809/harvards-university-library.html to http://publications.hul.harvard.edu/ar0809/harvards-university-library.html

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 * http://web.archive.org/web/20100620000018/http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de:80/ueber-uns/fuer-forschung-und-kultur/zahlen-und-fakten.html
 * http://web.archive.org/web/20100727190527/http://publications.hul.harvard.edu/ar0809/harvards-university-library.html


 * http://web.archive.org/web/20130803003040/http://publications.hul.harvard.edu/images/stories/pdfs/ar09.overallstats4.pdf

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Links #1 and 3 work; #2 leads to error page ("Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived."). Dhtwiki (talk) 05:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Link #2 no longer exists in the article (it was a Harvard University Library source). Dhtwiki (talk) 06:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

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Library and Archives Canada
In the link they says 20 million items. Why we wrote 54? Paolotacchi (talk) 14:38, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The "20 million" refers to just books. Nothing on the linked page says "54 million"; but by scanning the list presented there, you can see how someone might have come up with that number through original research. The latter number might be more representative. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Why are only the French and Spanish libraries in their original language?
Is there a wikipedia policy that is different for French and Spanish versus other languages? For instance, the Russian and German libraries also have names that are in the original language, but the English translation of those names are provided in this list. What would be the better way to make this uniform - by changing the German and Russian libraries back to their original language, or by converting the French and Spanish libraries to be in English? ChunyangD (talk) 22:16, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Boston Public Library vs New York Public Library
I am looking at the articles List of largest libraries and List of largest libraries in the United States. I notice that different sources says BPL is bigger than NYPL while others say NYPL is bigger than BPL even when they are measuring the same thing. Examples: Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4, Source 5, and Source 6. What could be behind those different numbers? Which one is accurate? Interstellarity (talk) 16:14, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Neither "sugarlaneblog.com" nor "infoplease.com" nor "largest.org" look like reliable sources, so that would be one possible explanation. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello @ToBeFree,
 * Thanks for your response. I think that sometimes, even if all the sources are reliable, there could still be discrepancies between data. Another possible explanation I was thinking is when the source was published since libraries add and remove to and from their collections. A source published in 2019 might be different from one published in 2021. Are you on IRC by any chance? Interstellarity (talk) 16:43, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure, that does happen. And yes, time is a factor (WP:RSAGE). Sorry, I'm currently not on IRC; I stopped using it in favor of on-Wikipedia editing to use my time more efficiently. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:08, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

University of michigan
the University of Michigan Library has a total of 16,025,996 volumes, qualifying it for this list, but only 14,543,814 are held on the Ann Arbor campus, which is just barely under the list's requirement. Do all the volumes have to be in the same general location for these here? It can include multiple locations of the same library, right? TheBotSO (talk) 19:11, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

BAnQ's number of copies is not available
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec's number of copies is not available, and its inclusion in the list is disputed. Υφ22 (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2024 (UTC)