Use of a National Library: A Survey of Readers in the Humanities and Social Sciences Reading Rooms of the British Library

1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Cranfield ◽  
Joe Hellowell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Seasonal Variations ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
British Library ◽  
National Library ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Libraries

A questionnaire survey was carried out in the humanities reading rooms of the British Library one day each month from September 1990 to August 1991 with the aim of providing information of help in planning services, particularly at the new building in St Pancras. Readers were asked about their occupations, nationalities, the location of the academic institutions to which they were affiliated, the reasons for and frequency of their visits etc. 65% of readers were academic staff or students, and 33% lived outside the UK; 31% said they had visited the library over 50 times in the past year. The results were compared, where appropriate, with earlier surveys in 1968 and 1977. These comparisons highlighted significant seasonal variations in patterns of usage. It was not possible to compare the results with those from surveys by other national libraries, because of widely differing survey methods and content of reports.

Cooperation and Partnership in the National Library Context: With Special Reference to the British Library

2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella Pilling
Keyword(s):  
Financial Support ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Public Library ◽  
British Library ◽  
National Library ◽  
The World ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Libraries ◽  
National Systems

In 1999 the British Library (BL) set up a Co-operation and Partnership Programme, with the remit to align the library's approach more closely with the strategies being developed by related organizations, both nationally and internationally. Early on, after examining and analysing examples of cooperative activities in the field of libraries and information services it was concluded that the importance of interlending as the main driving force of cooperation was declining with the growth of national systems and networking, while interoperability between different automated systems, to maximize the range of cooperative services, emerged as the next logical step for libraries in all sectors. One of the first objectives of the programme was to set up a website, named Concord, designed to help libraries, museums and archives to develop new cooperative projects. Later in 1999 a Call for Proposals was issued for projects seeking financial support from the newly created Co-operation and Partnership Fund, for which a sum of £500,000 had been earmarked. Within the UK, many cooperative initiatives involve the BL, along with the other legal deposit libraries, in the academic and public library sectors, and internationally within and between other national libraries, notably on digitization projects. There are now several bodies that bring together national libraries in different regions of the world, and indeed worldwide.

Safe Deposit: A UK Publishing View

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Davies
Keyword(s):  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Minimum Cost ◽  
National Archive ◽  
British Library ◽  
Fair Dealing ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Libraries ◽  
Consultation Paper

The evolutionary struggle between the printed page, CD-ROM, online services and the Internet as media for publishing has huge implications for the national archive. Authors, publishers and the libraries that have current responsibility for the UK national legal deposit collection all have a consuming interest in the outcome of the government's Consultation Paper on legal deposit. Publishers want the least onerous extension of the law to new and particularly to electronic formats, which some see as an opportunity to reduce the statutory six copies for deposit. The copyright libraries see their status possibly being affected, whilst universities see a new and important role for themselves in electronic archiving. The government has stipulated a solution at minimum cost to the industries involved, and if the publishing industry successfully lobbies for a reduction in the number of deposit copies, the national libraries will probably have the strongest case for retaining their privileges. Similar tensions arise over access to information content and its use in electronic form, especially transmission and reproduction, tensions that are already present in the British Library's service provision and its alleged impact on publishers' sales. The concept of ‘fair dealing’ will clearly have to be redefined. These and other important issues are now being aired, perhaps with more goodwill and trust than 20 years ago, between the British Library, some leading publishers, and the Publishers Association. Extension of the national archive to electronic and multimedia works will be a huge project requiring significant new funding. Indications for the future are greater selectivity, a reduction in the number of copies required, and a more streamlined administrative process. A comprehensive archive is unlikely to be achieved other than by statutory means.

scholarly journals Distributed National Collections: Concept and Reality in Two Countries

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Genoni
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Resource Sharing ◽  
British Library ◽  
Higher Education Funding ◽  
National Library ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Similar Scheme ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Specialized Subject

The ‘distributed national collection’ is a scheme whereby the British Library envisages completing agreements with other libraries to facilitate the development of specialized subject-based research collections in order to make the most of total national resources. The implementation in Australia of a similar scheme, the Distributed National Collection (DNC), was proposed during the late 1980s and 1990s, with the National Library (NLA) as a main advocate, and a great deal of enthusiasm was generated. The use of Conspectus was envisaged, and a DNC Office was set up at the NLA. It failed for various reasons: Conspectus proved unusable, the NLA had to cut back its own acquisitions, and financial restraints forced other libraries to look after their own interests. In the UK, the initiative for collaborative collection development has been driven by the British Library and the Higher Education Funding Councils. The UK has some features which give it a better chance of success - for instance, the responsible office should be independent of all the main players, whereas in Australia this responsibility could be carried only by the National Library; the UK has a more established network of research libraries, including a number outside the higher education/national library nexus; and the existence of BLDSC is highly beneficial. However, key challenges lie ahead, notably the complexities of managing the scheme, the time needed to put it into operation, the commitment demanded from participants (notably some sacrifice of local interests required for ‘deep resource sharing’), and obtaining the initial acceptance needed from users.

The Science Reading Rooms of the British Library: The User Community and Patterns of Use

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Reid ◽  
Beryl Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
Information Service ◽  
British Library ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Single Reading ◽  
Science Reading ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Average User

When the British Library in London moves into its new building at St Pancras the reference collections for science, business and patents in the Science Reference and Information Service (SRIS), at present housed in three locations, will be united in a single reading room complex. Much information of value for planning future services and arrangement of stock has been obtained over the years by surveys of users and usage, most recently at the end of 1993. A variety of survey methods was employed. The largest category of users consists of students, whose proportion rose from 28% in 1983 to 40% in 1993, while the patent community fell proportionately from 23% to 13% over the same period. Nearly all users were based in the UK, 92% of them in London and the South-East; but 22% were carrying out work for clients, 38% of whom were based in London, 26% in the rest of the UK and 36% abroad. Patent searchers spent nearly twice as much time in the reading rooms as other readers. English language periodicals received most use (used by 44% of users), but monographs (34%) and foreign language periodicals (7%) also received substantial use. The average user consulted 24 items per visit, and the average number of enquiries per day was 561. These and other findings are being used in planning aspects such as reader admissions procedures, arrangement of open access stock and staffing rotas, to ensure that the SRIS reading rooms in the new building will fulfil the needs of users.

scholarly journals The importance of legislation in the provision of national and public library services in Zambia

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Zulu ◽  
Mpho Ngoepe ◽  
Nampombe Saurombe
Keyword(s):  
Public Libraries ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Library Services ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Library Service ◽  
National Library ◽  
The Past ◽  
Service Legislation ◽  
National Libraries ◽  
Made In

Legislation plays an important role in the provision of national and public library services. In Zambia, however, libraries that perform the functions of national and public libraries are operating without a legislative mandate. As a result, there is fragmentation of library services as there is no single institution which performs all the functions of a national library service. Although several efforts have been made in the past to enact national library service legislation, no Act of Parliament has been passed to date (2015). This study provides empirical evidence depicting the benefits of having legislation in the provision of national and public library services. The study identifies institutions that perform functions of national and public library services in Zambia. Quantitative data were collected through questionnaires administered to public library staff and interviews with senior government officials and executive members of the Zambia Library Association and Zambia Library Consortium. The study recommends that appropriate legislation that puts together the functions of public and national libraries under one institution be enacted in Zambia as soon as possible. Failure to transform this pattern will jeopardise the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage.

Cooperation between Legal Deposit Libraries in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. D. McGowan
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Project ◽  
British Library ◽  
Republic Of Ireland ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
National Libraries ◽  
Retention Policies

Five libraries in the UK and the Republic of Ireland - the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, the university libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and Trinity College Dublin Library - can claim material from publishers through the Copyright Libraries' Agency, while deposit with The British Library, which maintains the Legal Deposit Office, is obligatory. In spite of problems caused by diverse sources of funding, there is much incentive and pressure to cooperate, and efforts have been made, particularly since 1988, to coordinate the activities of all six libraries. The Mellon Microfilming Project aims to film important scholarly collections in Britain and Ireland to agreed archival standards, and to improve access to the Register of Preservation Microfilms. A Working Group on Legal Deposit identified as areas for fruitful collaboration the coordination of acquisition of serials and of some types of monograph, and retention policies; some savings have already been made. A third exercise, a pilot project for shared cataloguing, aimed to maximize the utility to all libraries of the BL's National Bibliographic Service and minimize costs in the participating libraries; the Shared Cataloguing Programme itself started in September 1993.

Conspectus in the United Kingdom

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Matheson
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
British Library ◽  
National Library ◽  
Search System ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
The Uk

Conspectus started in the US where it is used as a means of distributing responsibilities by consensus within a group of research libraries. The main issues are the identification of Primary Collecting Responsibilities (PCRs) for subject areas and the identification of ‘endangered species.’ In the UK the British Library's programme and the Conspectus in Scotland programme have been completed and the National Library of Wales hopes to complete its own programme in 1989. Elsewhere in the UK the reaction to Conspectus has been generally cool. The British Library has created an online Conspectus search system which allows UK Conspectus information to be interrogated via a wide range of access points. Conspectus information may also have potential for identifying priorities for collaborative programmes for preservation and retrospective conversion. The Scottish group is now hoping to examine this area in some detail.

The British Library's International Engagement Strategy

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Stephens
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
British Library ◽  
National Library ◽  
The Past ◽  
International Activity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The World ◽  
International Engagement ◽  
Corporate Level

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the greatest libraries in the world. It is also most emphatically a library for the world. Its collections can be said to contain both ‘the memory of the nation’ and also ‘the DNA of civilization’. Indeed the Library uses the positioning statement: ‘Advancing the world's knowledge’. The Library engages in international activity in a wide variety of ways and at all levels through the organization. However, prior to 2007 the Library had not had a systematic corporate-level focus for its international engagement activity. This paper addresses the British Library's International Engagement Strategy and sets out the contextual background that led to its development and adoption in 2007. It goes on to describe, by using a number of case studies, the range of international activity taken forward by the Library under this strategy in the past two years. These include the Library's support for the reconstruction of the Iraq National Library and Archive and its contribution to the World Collections Programme initiative.

Disruption, values and resilience: The British Library’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 095574902110080
Author(s):  
Roly Keating
Keyword(s):  
British Library ◽  
Institutional Response ◽  
The Past ◽  
Institutional Values ◽  
The World ◽  
National Libraries

This article focuses on the institutional response of the British Library to the Covid-19 pandemic over the course of the past year. National libraries have a key part to play as the world recovers, and the experiences of the British Library highlight the central role of digital in adapting to massive disruption, of the importance of institutional values in steering a course through a year of crisis, and the contribution that we can make to building national and international resilience against future shocks and turmoil.

scholarly journals Monitoring Populations of Saxifraga cespitosa in Scotland

2014 ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
Kate Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Survey Methods ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Botanic Garden ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Botanic Garden ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Staff Skills

Saxifraga cespitosa is listed as Endangered on the UK Red List, compiled using IUCN criteria (Cheffings & Farrell, 2005). It is also one of the species listed for conservation priority at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) under Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). The species has been monitored extensively in the past, but there have been limited surveys in recent years. RBGE and the National Botanic Garden of Wales plan to survey all the UK locations of this species to increase information on existing populations and the threats to its survival. The field work and surveys carried out in 2013 are described in this paper and they have proved to be a useful learning experience for developing both staff skills and survey methods. Information on cultivation of the species from seed is also given. A field data sheet is provided as an appendix.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document