<P> The Library of Parliament (French: Bibliothèque du Parlement) is the main information repository and research resource for the Parliament of Canada . The main branch of the library sits at the rear of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, and is the last untouched part of that larger building's original incarnation after it burned down in 1916 . The library has been augmented and renovated a number of times since its construction in 1876, the last between 2002 and 2006, though the form and decor remain essentially authentic . The building today serves as a Canadian icon, and appears on the obverse of the Canadian ten - dollar bill . </P> <P> The library is overseen by the Parliamentary Librarian of Canada and an associate or assistant librarian . The Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate and the Parliamentary Budget Officer are also considered to be officers of the library . </P> <P> Designed by Thomas Fuller and Chilion Jones, and inspired by the British Museum Reading Room, the building is formed as a chapter house, separated from the main body of the Centre Block by a corridor; this arrangement, as well as many other details of the design, was reached with the input of the then parliamentary librarian, Alpheus Todd . The walls, supported by a ring of 16 flying buttresses, are load bearing, double - wythe masonry, consisting of a hydraulic lime rubble fill core between an interior layer of dressed stone and rustic Nepean sandstone on the exterior . Around the windows and along other edges is dressed stone trim, along with a multitude of stone carvings, including floral patterns and friezes, keeping with the Victorian High Gothic style of the rest of the parliamentary complex . The roof, set in three tiers topped by a cupola, used to be a timber frame structure covered with slate tiles, but has been rebuilt with steel framing and deck covered with copper . The initial overall combination of colours--grey Gloucester limestone and grey Nepean, red Potsdam and buff Ohio sandstones, as well as purple and green slate banding--conformed to the picturesque style known as structural polychromy . </P> <P> The main reading room rises to a vaulted ceiling and the walls and stacks are lined with white pine panelling carved into a variety of textures, flowers, masks, and mythical creatures . In the galleries are displayed the coats of arms of the seven provinces that existed in 1876, as well as that of the Dominion of Canada, and standing directly in the centre of the room is a white marble statue of Queen Victoria, sculpted by Marchall Wood in 1871 . The northern galleries are also flanked with the white marble busts of Sir John Sandfield Macdonald; Prince Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII); Alexandra, Princess of Wales (later Queen Alexandra); and Sir Étienne - Paschal Taché . </P>

What influenced the exterior design of the library of parliament