Editing British Museum (section)

===The Great Court emerges (1975–2000)===
The departure of the British Library to a new site at St Pancras, finally achieved in 1998, provided the space needed for the books. It also created the opportunity to redevelop the vacant space in [[Robert Smirke (architect)|Robert Smirke's]] 19th-century central quadrangle into the [[Queen Elizabeth II Great Court]] – the largest covered square in Europe – which opened in 2000. The ethnography collections, which had been housed in the short-lived [[Museum of Mankind]] at [[6 Burlington Gardens]] from 1970, were returned to new purpose-built galleries in the museum in 2000.

The museum again readjusted its collecting policies as interest in "modern" objects: prints, drawings, medals and the decorative arts reawakened. Ethnographical fieldwork was carried out in places as diverse as [[New Guinea]], [[Madagascar]], [[Romania]], [[Guatemala]] and [[Indonesia]] and there were excavations in the [[Near East]], Egypt, Sudan and the UK. The [[Weston family|Weston]] Gallery of Roman Britain, opened in 1997, displayed a number of recently discovered [[hoard]]s which demonstrated the richness of what had been considered an unimportant part of the Roman Empire. The museum turned increasingly towards private funds for buildings, acquisitions and other purposes.<ref>Wilson, David M. (2002). ''The British Museum: A History''. London: The British Museum Press, p. 327.</ref> In 2000, the British Museum was awarded National Heritage [[Museum of the Year]].<ref>{{citation |title=Awards and Winners |url=http://nationalheritage.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MOYA-list1.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190628212635/http://nationalheritage.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MOYA-list1.pdf |archive-date=28 June 2019 |website=National Heritage |accessdate=28 June 2019}}</ref>