Editing British Museum (section)

===A new public face (1950–1975)===
[[File:The Duveen Gallery (1980s).jpg|thumb|The re-opened [[Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen|Duveen]] Gallery, 1980]]

In 1953, the museum celebrated its [[200 (number)|bicentenary]]. Many changes followed: the first full-time in-house designer and publications officer were appointed in 1964, the [[The British Museum Friends|Friends]] organisation was set up in 1968, an Education Service established in 1970 and publishing house in 1973. In 1963, a new Act of Parliament introduced administrative reforms. It became easier to lend objects, the constitution of the [[board of trustees]] changed and the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] became fully independent. By 1959 the [[British Museum Department of Coins and Medals|Coins and Medals]] office suite, completely destroyed during the war, was rebuilt and re-opened, attention turned towards the gallery work with new tastes in design leading to the remodelling of [[Robert Smirke (architect)|Robert Smirke's]] Classical and Near Eastern galleries.<ref>Wilson, David M. (2002). ''The British Museum: A History''. London: The British Museum Press, p. 270.</ref> In 1962 the Duveen Gallery was finally restored and the Parthenon Sculptures were moved back into it, once again at the heart of the museum.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|1=Ashmole had never liked the Duveen Gallery: <blockquote>It is, I suppose, not positively bad, but it could have been infinitely better. It is pretentious, in that it uses the ancient Marbles to decorate itself. This is a long outmoded idea, and the exact opposite of what a sculpture gallery should do. And, although it incorporates them, it is out of scale, and tends to dwarf them with its bogus Doric features, including those columns, supporting almost nothing which would have made an ancient Greek artist architect wince. The source of daylight is too high above the sculptures, a fault that is only concealed by the amount of reflection from the pinkish marble walls. These are too similar in colour to the marbles... These half-dozen elementary errors were pointed out by everyone in the Museum, and by many scholars outside, when the building was projected.<ref>Ashmole (1994), 126.</ref></blockquote> It was not until the 1980s that the installation of a lighting scheme removed his greatest criticism of the building.}}

By the 1970s, the museum was again expanding. More services for the public were introduced; visitor numbers soared, with the temporary exhibition "Treasures of [[Tutankhamun]]" in 1972, attracting 1,694,117 visitors, the most successful in British history. In the same year the Act of Parliament establishing the British Library was passed, separating the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. This left the museum with antiquities; coins, medals and paper money; prints and drawings; and [[ethnography]]. A pressing problem was finding space for additions to the library which now required an extra {{convert|1+1/4|mi}} of shelving each year. The Government suggested a site at [[St Pancras, London|St Pancras]] for the new British Library but the books did not leave the museum until 1997.