File:Birmingham and Midland Institute (formerly The Birmingham Library) (3668616315).jpg

The Birmingham and Midland Institute is now on Margaret Street, in Birmingham City Centre. It was a pioneer of adult scientific and technical institution (General Industrial, Commercial and Music) and it today offers Arts and Sciences lectures.

When the old mid 19th century building was demolished in 1965 as part of the redevelopment of Birmingham City Centre, the BMI moved to Margaret Street, the home of the private Birmingham Library, which is a Grade II* listed building, designed in 1889 by architects Jethro Cossins, F. B. Peacock, and Ernest Bewly.

1899, by Cassins, Peacock and Bewlay. Red brick with stone dressings; green stone tiled roof. Two storeys plus basement and attic; 5 bays, the outer once advanced and gabled, that on the right broader and taller than that on the left. Ground floor with a modern entrance with 3-light transomed window above, three 4-light windows with transom and bold voussoirs in the arches and then the entrance up steps within an archway flanked by banded Ionic columns and arched panels. First floor with a 3-light window, six 2-light windows separated from one another by banded Ionic columns standing alternately on the keystone of the window below and a buttresses rising from basement level and a window of Serliam type with banded Ionic pilasters and a sculpted semi-circular panel over the centre light. Below the 6 window a sculpted band of Renaissance-type decoration. All first floor windows with 2 transoms. Richly decorated cornice and parapet behind which the roof in which three 4-light flat-headed dormer windows. All windows with leaded lights. Right-hand return on Cornwall Street of 3 bays and similar to the Margaret Street elevation. Nothing inside.

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Formerly listed as The Birmingham Library. Now listed as Birmingham Midland Institute.

Before public libraries were provided there were private and subsciption libraries, of which there were several in Birmingham. The most important one, which subsequently became the Birmingham Library, was established in 1779. From 1797 until 1899 this library was in its own premises in Union Street, designed by William Hollins. It then moved to a new building, designed by Cossins & Peacock, on the corner of Margaret Street and Cornwall Street, now owned by the Birmingham and Midland Institute, and Grade II listed.