Introduction 

"To enlarge knowledge by observation and experiment" was the long-sighted goal behind the formation in 1660 of The Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, known today as The Royal Society. From it can be traced the various institutions and learned societies that form the Engineering Council, as it became a model for other societies which specialised in turn in the various areas of scientific knowledge that developed during the time of the Enlightenment.

Over time, a variety of engineering disciplines evolved their own corresponding institutions - including the Institution of Civil Engineers (founded 1818), Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1847), Institution of Gas Engineers (1863), Institution of Electrical Engineers (1871), Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (1892), Institution of Structural Engineers (1908), Institution of Chemical Engineers (1922), The Welding Institute [TWI] (1968) and so on - each institution developing its own specialist library of knowledge. Through the work of the Engineering Institutions Librarians' Committee any member of an Engineering Council institution can use for reference any other library within the Engineering Council network and thus have access to a vast collection of scientific and technical information.

Since its formation in 1866 (and under its earlier title as the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain) the Royal Aeronautical Society Library, the oldest aeronautical society in the world, has evolved into one of the world's major collections, tracing the evolution of man's attempts to conquer the dream of flight from prehistory to modern times as recorded in books, pamphlets, journals, reports, letters, photographs, lithographs, posters, and other non-book material. Due to a combination of age and usage some of this material is now in need of conservation and anyone who would like to 'sponsor' for current and future generations the restoration of a particular item from the Library's unique archive of the world's aeronautical heritage can do so through the Library's 'Adopt-a-Picture' and 'Adopt-a-Book' conservation appeals.

Today the Society's Library holds an extensive collection of material relating to the development and recent technical advances in aeronautics, aviation and aerospace technology, reflecting the wide-ranging interests of the Society.

Latest additions are publicised in the bi-monthly supplement to The Aerospace Professional, Library Additions. Members and non-members around the world can make enquiries of the Society's Library by personal visit, phone, letter, fax or e-mail. The Library is essentially centred around five major collections-books, journals, technical reports, regulatory material and the photographic collections (original photographs, glass lantern slides, ballooning lithographs). The Society's Library holds an extensive collection of over 27,000 books (including directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets and many rare books and unpublished papers) and currently receives around 250 titles each year.

Last year around 90 books received full length reviews published by the Society in The Aeronautical Journal and The Aerospace Professional, the remaining material received being announced to the Society's members with short abstracts in Library Additions.

Members based in the UK can borrow up to two books at any time on a three-week loan period, with outgoing postage costs to be refunded on mailed items; a photocopying service is also available.

Extensive holdings are held of various company brochures and other internal publications produced by many of the leading aircraft companies over the years and, in particular, there are extensive holdings relating to the Bristol Aeroplane Company (and its predecessor British and Colonial Aeroplane Company) and Junkers. Particular note should be made of the Library's holdings of the Cuthbert-Hodgson, Poynton and Maitland collections of early ballooning, airships and other aeronautical material. Held for reference are complete sets of Jane's All The World's Aircraft and the ESDU International data sheets for the aeronautical sciences.

Journals The Library receives around 300 current journal titles covering aviation and aerospace engineering and related subjects and holds back numbers of these and of many other discontinued titles. The world-wide coverage of its journal holdings (including all those of the AIAA - and its predecessors, the Institute of Aeronautical/Aerospace Sciences and the American Rocket Society - various journal title series) is a key strength of the Library and has resulted in a unique collection recording the development of aviation around the world.

Apart from complete bound holdings of Flight International (formerly Flight), Aviation Week and Space Technology (formerly Aviation), Aircraft Engineering, The Aeroplane and Sailplane and Gliding (and its earlier predecessor Sailplane and Glider), the Library holds extensive bound runs of many other important journal titles including L'Aerophile, Junkers Nachrichten, Bulletin Fokker, L'Air, L'Avion, Aerea, Aeronautique, L'Ala d'Italia, Flugsport as well as other important British journals such as Aero, Imperial Airways Gazette/Weekly News Bulletin, Air (published by the Aerial League of the British Empire), Handley Page Bulletin, de Havilland Gazette, Aeronautics, Aircraft Production and the pre-WW2 Popular Flying and Flying (both edited by W.E. Johns, author of the Biggles stories), among many other titles. In recent years, partly financed by donations to the Library's 'Adopt-a-Book' programme, a number of the previously unbound older journal titles have been bound for conservation.

As with its journals, the Society's Library holds considerable holdings of technical reports from aeronautical research establishments around the world. These include NASA (and its predecessor NACA), ONERA in France, DLR (and its predecessor DFVLR) in Germany, NLR in the Netherlands, ESA (and its predecessors ELDO and ESRO), RTO (and its predecessor AGARD), FFA in Sweden and ISAS in Japan. Older report series held include the R&Ms and CPs issued by the ARC, the early reports from ARL in Australia, UTIAS in Canada and the Von Karman institute (VKI) in Belgium among others. As with the books, symposia and other papers the latest technical reports received are recorded in the bi-monthly Library Additions.

In 1902 Professor Ernest Nys of the University of Brussels first gave a definition name 'droit aerien' to the new branch of law which, overtime, has expanded into space law and became regulated through various international conventions. In addition to books and other papers on the subject, for many years the Society's Library has received on standing order all ICAO publications (including the Documents, Circulars, Annexes and Digest of Statistics series). The Library currently subscribes to JAA regulatory material and the BCAR series which it is gradually replacing. It also holds the CAA's Airworthiness Notices series.

Photographs 

The Society's Library holds a very extensive photographic/glass lantern slide/lithographic collection of aviation images (over 100,000) from the early days of ballooning through to current aircraft (including flying boats, seaplanes, amphibians, pilots, aircraft engines, airports, aerial views, etc.), space, rocketry and missiles, including a number of portrait photographs of aviation personalities. Scanned images from the collection can be supplied to members and non-members on a fee basis for reproduction in books, journals, CD-ROMS, Internet sites, lecture slides or for use as presentation prints.

In addition, many of the early members of the Society and their descendants had the foresight to leave for posterity their books and papers to the Society and the Society's Library holds, among other pioneers' letters, manuscripts of Sir George Cayley (1773-1857), John Stringfellow (1799-1883), Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), Orville Wright (1871-1948), Katharine Wright (1874-1929), Lawrence Hargrave (1850-1915), Major B.F.S. Baden-Powell (1860-1937), C.G. Grey (1875-1953), and the design notebooks of F.S. Barnwell (1880-1938) in addition to various files of papers relating to the long history of the Society itself.