The Science Museum Library and Archives holds a huge collection of books, archives, journals and engineering plans documenting the history of science, technology, engineering and medicine over the past 500 years.

Particular highlights include:
 
•         3000 books published before 1800 (oldest 1486) including original works by world famous scientists: Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus etc
 
•         Personal archives of famous engineers including Barnes Wallis, Babbage,  Leo Villa (Mechanic to Donald and Malcolm Campbell) as well as company archives: Hooper Coachbuilders, Pearson Engineers, Kenwood, ICL
 
•         A complete set of UK patent specifications and accompanying drawings 1617-1992
 
•         Runs of over 10,000 scientific and engineering journals
 
•         Trade literature collection – over 50,000 (mostly British) companies represented, brochures, price lists, instruction manuals, advertising etc

The visit will last approximately 2 hours.

Further information may be found at http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about_us/collections/science_library.aspx