The Good Library Blog

I'm not in a position to argue about value, but as someone who also lives outside London, I should point out that the public library inter-lending system has become increasingly dependent on the British Library's Document Supply service at Boston Spa. As public library bookstock has declined in range and quantity it has been the British Library that has plugged the gap supplying a vast range of books quickly and efficiently all over the UK.

As public libraries have relentlessly withdrawn books, so the BL's role as a deposit library has also become increasingly important. I have found that the fetching time for items compares favourably with many other libraries I have used.

That said, there are some issues that cause concern - the disposal of items (highlighted by Nicolson Baker in Double Fold for instance), the decision to sell off the land that might have allowed for expansion is another questionable issue - particularly as the BL recently announced that it is to transfer "low use" items to Boston Spa (which will may increase supply times)because it is unable to renew the leases on current storage sites. I also find the charging structure on "British Libraries Direct" objectionable - for reasons too lengthy to dicuss here.

I also believe the reading rooms at the BL are under pressure from high levels of reader use because of the failure of public and academic libraries to provide what people need.
I also think that it is the reaction of any organisation to say that it will be srvices to the public that will suffer from cuts when they are threatened - if only to generate pressure on the govenment.

Roger -there is quite a lot available online via the BL - what would you expect to see that isn't provided?

Yes, the British Library's sending of stock out of London continues the decline.

It has announced that it it "a rolling programme", as management-speak has it, and that "in this first phase 10.6% of our total collection will be transferred".

Although these are technoloical monographs, the Micawber Street premises in which those are held also contain a great number of humanities subjects, such as novels which have been completely thrown out by the public-library system - as we have seen, there are no copies of Jeff Torrington's Swing, Hammer! Swing in Sussex libraries.

What will be the total percentage of stock in Boston? And why are all new American books now put there?

The decline in the quality of fiction in public libraries is driving readers away.

Thanks for your comments, which I read with interest. You said:

"Roger -there is quite a lot available online via the BL - what would you expect to see that isn't provided?"

I'm not sure that I understand this comment. As far as I can tell there is almost *nothing* available online via the BL. By 'nothing' I mean no books, no serials, no research materials. There is a catalogue which I never use, since it's unfriendly; but not a lot else. There is lots of decorative stuff.

What I want to see, like everyone else, is stuff to read: scanned books, scanned serials, scanned research material. Most of us are using Google books and Archive.org for these things.

What I would want to see is something like Google books, or better, Gallica.bnf.fr; access to books and serials. I don't see that; not any of it. Am I wrong?

I would particularly like to see access to catalogues, in scanned bitmap form, as again we see at the Bibliotheque Nationale Francais. Look for Oriental manuscript catalogues, holdings in Syriac, Arabic, etc. There is nothing. Yet such PDF's could be prepared in a day or two. There *is* a good western manuscripts electronic catalogue, which *is* good news. But it's a bit web-1. Some of us could useful add notes to it, but there is no way to do so.

For research, I would expect to see scanned manuscripts, preferably in PDF form. Not just pretty-pretty images, which make the website look pretty but are of limited value; what I mean is whole medieval text manuscripts, scanned into PDF's and available for scholars to consult.

While Codex Sinaiticus is good to have, its a very, very slow and expensive way of doing ONE (just one) manuscript. What about the other 50,000-odd?

Rare books? What about these? When can I download some of the massive Latin and Greek compendia of the 18th-19th century?

I've mentioned stuff specific to my interests, but the great thing about Gallica, and Google Books, is the catholicity of it. It's useful to everyone. This, surely, is what the National Library should try to do for us all?

Incidentally you refer to the BL doc supply service as "efficient". I use it heavily, at £4.50 a go, in Suffolk. There are many terms I might apply to this, but efficient is not one of them. Orders take weeks!