Library Reading Room

Reading Room resources

The Royal Naval Museum Library holds a variety of serial publications, the most important of which are available on open shelves in the Reading Room. These include

London Gazettes (1776 to 1986)

Navy Lists (from 1797)

Illustrated London News

Admiralty Fleet Orders

Annual Register

amongst other standard serial and reference publications relating to naval history including

Mariner's Mirror

Naval Review

Jane's Fighting Ships and the

ODNB

In addition, other significant runs held in the stores are

Army & Navy Gazette

Gentleman’s Magazine

selected Parliamentary Papers

The Times 1809-1986

For further detailed information on the titles and runs held in the library, please look at the Genealogical sources and General historical sources information sheets or contact us.

Reading Room assistance

Readers can access the London Gazettes, Navy Lists and a large number of reference resources in the Reading Room. Readers can also access the library and manuscript catalogues within the Reading Room for materials held in our environmentally controlled bookstore, Staff are on hand to advise readers on resources held within the library and can advise on external sources of information, if necessary. Some of these can be found on our Useful Sources pages

Digital copying

The library has a state of the art digital scanner for public use to make copies of materials in the Reading Room, subject to normal copyright limitations for personal study and the materials being in good condition. Researchers are advised to bring a USB storage device for scans or staff are able to email or burn images to CD. Charges apply.

We are also happy for researchers to use their own digital camera to take non-flash images of materials,subject to normal copyright limitations for personal study

Please download our digital copying and charges policy here

Location

The Royal Naval Museum Library Reading Room is located behind the Museum building within the Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth.