Unlike its new headquarters on London’s Euston Road, the British Library’s Web site fulfils expectations as an online representation of one of the world’s greatest collections of books, documents, sound recordings and images.

What first hits you is its size: researchers could lose themselves for days here, and probably do.

The site offers some-thing for everyone: from password-protected access to the BL’s data-bases of more than 19 million bibliographic records to the chance to examine choice exhibits from the library’s many special collections.

There are illustrated features on the Magna Carta and Beowulf, the National Sound Archive and the Philatelic collections. One of many attractive contributions from the Oriental and India Office collections is about the “Cave of Manuscripts” at Dunhuang, China’s ancient capital.