News from the British Library

Citation

(2002), "News from the British Library", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 36 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2002.28036aab.002

News from the British Library

News from the British Library

British Library funds £425,000 UK-wide programme of projects

A diverse range of schemes across the UK will benefit from awards announced by the British Library's Co-operation and Partnership Programme. Successful projects include increasing access to health information for the public to facilities for London-based libraries and learners; from services to aid visually impaired people to mapping the music resources of the UK. Totalling £425,000, the awards will benefit many areas of the country. Ten schemes in total are to receive funds ranging from £20,000 to £89,000 and comprise the following:

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  Widening Access to Libraries in Merseyside (WARM). Lead institution: Liverpool Libraries and Information Services, award: £59,665; jointly funded with the Research Support Libraries Programme.

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  Wales on the Web. Lead institution: the National Library of Wales, award: £52,000; jointly funded with the Research Support Libraries Programme and Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

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  Implementation of Reveal: the National Database of Accessible Resources. Lead institution: National Library for the Blind, award: £41,950.

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  Peakland Heritage. Lead institution: Derbyshire County Council, Libraries & Heritage Department, award: £35,900; jointly funded with Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

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  Libraries and Learners in London. Lead institution: London Libraries Development Agency, award: £20,200; jointly funded with the Research Support Libraries Programme.

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  Working with public libraries to enhance access to quality-assured health information for the lay public: proposal for a demonstrator study. Lead institution: Bournemouth University, award: £29,200.

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  Performing Arts Resource Discovery. Lead institution: Theatre Museum, award: to be confirmed.

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  Cecilia: mapping the UK music resource. Lead institution: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (UK Branch) – IAML (UK), award: £51,050; jointly funded with the Research Support Libraries Programme and Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

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  Black and Asian Londoners 1536-1840. Lead institution: London Metropolitan Archives, award: £30,970; jointly funded with Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

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  Co-East Plus: building a sector-wide approach to resource-sharing in the East of England. Lead institution: Co-East, award: £89,700.

In addition to the British Library's £325,000 donation over two years, two other bodies are co-operating and contributing to the scheme. The Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) will donate £50,000 for the second successive year, towards the higher education elements of successful projects. Alongside this is a contribution from Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, which will also contribute £50,000 for cross-domain projects. Four of the projects will be jointly funded with either Resource or RSLP and two will be funded co-operatively by all three funding partners.

Forty-one organisations initially bid for funding after the British Library's Co-operation and Partnership Programme's Calls for Proposals was launched in October 2000, by the library's Chief Executive Lynne Brindley.

Clive Field, recently appointed Director of Scholarship and Collections at the British Library, welcomed the new projects "… especially their inclusivity and diversity, in terms of subject coverage, partners and methodology. The projects represent another important and exciting step forward in co-operation between public, higher education and specialist libraries, as well as ongoing collaboration between the library, museum and archive domains. It is also gratifying to acknowledge the co-funding from the higher education Research Support Libraries Programme and Resource. All in all, these objects exemplify the breaking-down of traditional funding and service boundaries and demonstrate a concerted effort by information providers to share their information assets and services with the broadest possible audience."

Three centuries of key government documents online

A free archive of 23,000 Government documents spanning 1688-1995 are now available online, funded through a British Library programme. From foot and mouth epidemics, dubious electoral practices, rail privatisation and channel tunnel projects – to the surprising – arsenic in beer, venereal disease, opium revenues and drunkenness, the subjects covered provide a colourful insight into the responses by the governments of the day. Ten universities across the UK have also contributed to the project, led by the University of Southampton.

The database is designed to save researchers valuable time by enabling them to:

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  Search and browse for relevant documents without having to visit libraries to consult hard-copy reference tools, or needing to seek assistance from reference libraries.

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  Read abstracts, and view detailed consistent subject indexing, of key documents so that they can assess whether they need to see the full document or not.

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  Find out the nearest location of relevant documents, if they decide that they need them.

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  Read the digitised full-text version of key documents.

Ronald Milne is Programme Director at the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP), partners in the project, who said: "We are delighted to be co-funding this important work with the British Library. This will be a major new resource for researchers, helping them to search this immense body of material to locate documents and source the nearest copies."

It can be easily navigated via simple keyword searches or subject browsing. These cover all areas of government activity including health, economic policy, religion, education, social issues and the environment. Type in "agriculture" and discover information about enclosures, Corn Laws and animal diseases. Enter "education" and a wealth of documents stretching back to 1691 is revealed.

Sub-categories include betting, drunkenness, intemperance, pub opening hours, teachers' salaries, taxes, longitude at sea and slavery. A quick search on pub opening hours shows that it was being discussed back in 1897. Searching under "Foot and mouth" highlights the site's topical relevance and reveals that the disease has been causing concern since at least 1873.

Leading the project is Dr Mark Brown of the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton, who said: "We are delighted to be involved in this project with the British Library and the RSLP. It will unlock the hidden treasures contained in key government documents from the eighteenth century through to the present day."

Jennie Grimshaw, head of the British Library's Social Policy Information Service, comments: "The database will prove an invaluable tool for researchers and the general public. The British Library sees partnerships such as this with the University of Southampton as an important part of its operations, and as a way to make its resources much more widely available."

iBase creates a new impression for British Library bindings

One of the world's greatest repositories of printed books and manuscripts, The British Library also hold a vast collection of rare and beautiful book bindings, many of which are too precious or too fragile for public display. Now, thanks to an innovative digital viewing system, created by UK software developer, iBase, these valuable items are for the first time available to library users through a new digital catalogue.

The iBase system enables users to search, identify and view high quality images of the binding decoration, together with details of provenance and bibliographical information for research or of general interest. This public access component sits on top of a comprehensive management system also created by iBase, through which the library staff can store and maintain multiple resolution images of the bindings, together with full text information on identity, provenance and workmanship.

Philippa Marks, Curator of Book Bindings, said: "This is an ongoing project which will provide a valuable research tool for our readers. The first stage of the project has concentrated on English bindings from the sixteenth century to the present day and provides an important and unusual source of information on the art, technology and history of the book trade. Working with iBase on this project has been very successful – they have taken pains to understand and meet our particular requirements and have enabled us to open up a whole new aspect of our collections to the public."

After months of work, the new database was publicly launched at the end of June. Nic Sheen, technical director of iBase, commented: "We are delighted to have worked with the British Library on the fulfilment of this important project. As specialists in the development of database management and public access systems for heritage organisations, it is our endeavour to ensure that our solutions provide the best tools for organising, protecting and supplying images and data, enabling organisations to make valuable collections such as this accessible to the public."

The public viewing system is presently available in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room of the library, though there are also future plans for the system to be made available to a world-wide public over the Internet.

Collaboration and access: major themes of the British Library's Annual Report 2000-2001

The first steps to establish a digital infrastructure are detailed in the British Library's Annual Report 2000-2001. The Report, which is available online at http://www.bl.uk, also shows the Library engaged in seeking new ways of making its collections and services more accessible to an ever-wider public by harnessing the potential of the Internet.

Significant developments during 2000-2001 include:

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  A 24 per cent increase in British Library Public Catalogue searches, from 5.1 million in 1999-2000 to 6.39 million in 2000-2001.

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  A 16 per cent increase in attendance for the Library's acclaimed programme of exhibitions, which attracted some 370,000 visitors.

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  Launch of the Library's Electronic Table of Contents (zetoc) database in September 2000, offering UK higher and further education users free access to details of nearly 16 million journal articles and conference papers.

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  A total of 12 per cent more items acquired through UK legal deposit than in 1999-2000 – the Library received, inter alia, 104,000 books and 260,000 journal parts.

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  Over 230,000 items preserved – an increase of 36 per cent on the previous year, helping the library fulfil its role as custodian of the National Published Archive.

Commenting on the Report's contents, the British Library's chief executive, Lynne Brindley, said: "The library is at a critical and exciting stage of its history. With advances in information and communication technology and increasing expectations from stakeholders we face unprecedented opportunities and challenges. In the past year we have taken important steps towards providing the basis for the Library to embrace the digital and wider e-revolution. This will enable us to provide much better access to our collections and create new services to support innovation, research and reference world-wide."

She continued: "A major issue for us is the rapid and unpredictable change in demand experienced by our remote document supply services. A comprehensive review has been undertaken to help determine how best to position and deliver these services in the future."

The departing Chairman of the British Library Board, John Ashworth, said: "The British Library is not alone, of course, in facing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of rapid technological change. We recognise that the solutions to the challenges we face will, in large measure, be collaborative. Thus we have engaged still more closely with our partners in the UK library network, in the interest of providing a better service to our readers within a new landscape of national provision."

For further information please contact: Press and Public Relations, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7412 7111; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7412 7168; E-mail: press-and-pr@bl.uk; URL: www.bl.uk