In the collection of the British Library there are two Gutenberg Bibles, two copies of Magna Carta, five copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio and now something new: your e-mail messages.

Or at least ones like them. Throughout this month the library, in partnership with Microsoft, has been collecting e-mail notes that ordinary Britons and others have sent — 13,807 so far — as a way of capturing a sense of life in the 21st century.

“E-mail is the first major upheaval in written English since the invention of the printing press,” said Jonnie Robinson, a sociolinguistic and education specialist at the library who has been working on the project, known as Email Britain.