The National Art Library is located on the second floor and is a public reference room. Let me repeat... PUBLIC reference room. Walking in makes you feel like you are entering a personal library in a rich King or Queens castle. The wood interior and all the books are absolutely beautiful. We were allowed to go into the back archives where even more of their books were stored. They even showed us some of their prized materials including one of the original Shakespeare First Folio's! It was so beautiful to be inches away from this treasure. I am an avid Shakespeare fan and if it weren't for this book, some of my most favorite plays would have been lost in history.
Much of the collection is also stored at the Blythe House. They have everything from medieval manuscripts to 21st century comics. They own not one but three copies of Shakespeare's First Folio.They have one of the largest collections of book art. All the staff are trained in salvage operations in case of any emergencies where they will need to save the materials.
After getting a tour of the library we all adventured off to go enjoy the rest of this beautiful museum. There was so much that you could spend several days wandering through to be able to enjoying the entirety of it.
Check out this website to learn more about the museum: https://www.vam.ac.uk/
Check out this website specifically for the online collections available through the library: https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections?type=featured