Description: This site contains information on over 27,000 libraries in the British Isles listed in individual HTML files. The data, which is not directly searchable, was compiled from over 1,200 sources and lists libraries all over the British Isles from the late medieval period to 1850. The data is indexed by country, and within countries by county, and within counties by place and name. Alternatively, the material is also indexed by types of libraries, including circulating, subscription, school, industrial, professional, and specialty libraries. A brief summary of statistics on the numbers and types of libraries in the period is also provided. The Web site's author, a former Chair in Library Studies at London University, now retired, concludes from this data that, contrary to the conclusions of cultural historians, there were provisions of print "in almost every market town in the British Isles by the year 1820, and by 1850 in hundreds of villages with a population of less than 500 souls." The site is useful not only to those doing research in library history, but potentially to anyone doing specialized research in the holdings of UK libraries during the period covered.