Editing British Museum (section)

===The British Museum today===
[[File:British Museum Great Court, London, UK - Diliff.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The [[Queen Elizabeth II Great Court|Great Court]] was developed in 2001 and surrounds the original [[British Museum Reading Room|Reading Room]].]]
Today the museum no longer houses collections of [[natural history]], and the books and manuscripts it once held now form part of the independent [[British Library]]. The museum nevertheless preserves its universality in its collections of artefacts representing the cultures of the world, ancient and modern. The original 1753 collection has grown to over 13&nbsp;million objects at the British Museum, 70&nbsp;million at the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] and 150&nbsp;million at the British Library.

The [[British Museum Reading Room|Round Reading Room]], which was designed by the architect [[Sydney Smirke]], opened in 1857. For almost 150 years researchers came here to consult the museum's vast library. The Reading Room closed in 1997 when the national library (the British Library) moved to a new building at [[St Pancras, London|St Pancras]]. Today it has been transformed into the Walter and Leonore [[Annenberg Foundation|Annenberg]] Centre.

With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum empty, the demolition for [[Lord Foster]]'s glass-roofed [[Queen Elizabeth II Great Court|Great Court]] could begin. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was criticised for having a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public. At the same time the African collections that had been temporarily housed in 6 Burlington Gardens were given a new gallery in the North Wing funded by the [[David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville|Sainsbury]] family – with the donation valued at £25&nbsp;million.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/africa/room_25_africa.aspx |title=Room 25: Africa |publisher=British Museum |date=14 June 2010 |access-date=4 July 2010 |archive-date=30 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330130709/http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/africa/room_25_africa.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref>

The museum's [[online database]] had nearly 4,500,000 individual object entries in 2,000,000 records at the start of 2023.<ref>{{cite web |title=Explore the collection |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection |website=British Museum |access-date=9 September 2023 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924170437/http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?searchTerm=bernard&orig=%2Fresearch%2Fsearch_the_collection_database%2Fsearch_results_provenance.aspx&personId=101004&personAssociation=&termDisplay=Grdseloff%2C+Bernard&sortby=Bernard |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2022&ndash;23 there were 27 million visits to the website.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/governance |title=The British Museum Review: 2022-23 |date=2023 |publisher=The British Museum |chapter=At a glance}}</ref> This compares with 19.5&nbsp;millions website visits in 2013.<ref name="BBC_museum#">{{Cite news |date=14 January 2014 |title=British Museum gets record 6.7m visitors for 2013 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25729616 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140330134230/http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25729616 |archive-date=30 March 2014 |access-date=20 March 2014 |newspaper=BBC News}}</ref>

There were 5,820,860 visits to the museum in 2023, a 42% increase on 2022. The museum was the most visited tourist attraction in Britain in 2023. The number of visits, however, has not recovered to the level reached before the Covid pandemic.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Nanji |first=Noor |date=18 March 2024 |title=British Museum is the most-visited UK attraction again |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68577122 |access-date=18 June 2024 |work=BBC News}}</ref>

A number of [[List of films shot at the British Museum|films have been shot at the British Museum]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Filming Locations |url=https://findthatlocation.com/film-title/doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness%20/location/951 |access-date=17 May 2022 |website=Find that Location |archive-date=25 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220625144626/https://findthatlocation.com/film-title/doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness%20/location/951 |url-status=live }}</ref>