Category: British Library
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‘Some librarians are pretty weird’
To some extent, a blog post on Tuesday’s Times Higher Education and British Library Growing Knowledge project’s debate, Growing Knowledge: is the physical library a redundant resource for 21st century academic, is itself redundant. Matt Shaw, who introduced the evening, has written a post on the Growing Knowledge blog, and promises a podcast; I and…
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Time travel with the Google generation at the British Library
Whatever is going on at the BL? I came upon a post from Stephen Arnold who has discovered through the BL’s website a notice that on Friday 16th January 2009 the BL will be publishing the Google generation report, or, as it should be known,Information behaviour of the researcher of the future. In fact the…
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Lord Levy
Many things our dear British Library does puzzle its readers and the library profession, but the decision to appoint Lord Levy to the British Library Development Board must be the strangest yet. The story was in yesterday’s Observer, and there is nothing yet on the BL website, though it is perhaps not the sort of…
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Buggers, pansies and pedants
A new exhibition, The Golden Generation, British Theatre 1945-1968, on theatre censorship opened at the British Library on Wednesday, and was previewed in the Guardian on Tuesday, though, apart from a press release, is curiously absent from the BL’s website, though there is a good blog. A memo from the Lord Chamberlain, who exercised censorship…
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Managing digital lives
I filled in a survey as part of the Digital Lives project, which is trying to shed light on the under-investigated subject of how we manage personal collections of information. I look forward to seeing the results. Take the survey here: there’s a draw for £200 of British Library shop vouchers. How many do you…
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St Pancras
I’m afraid I can’t summon up much sympathy for Antonia Fraser and others who are complaining about undergraduates being let into the British Library reading rooms. I use the BL from time to time, but have never failed to find a seat. And some of the criticisms about frappuccinos in the reading rooms are incorrect:…
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Free wireless at the British Library
The British Library, thanks to the efforts of the British Library Readers Forum, is to offer free wireless for a trial period of six months, starting in October. The BL was persuaded by the Forum’s arguments that a free system was actually the easiest to operate and most in line with the Library’s purpose of…
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British Library in the Observer
The threat to the British Library of budget cuts after the spending review is mentioned both in a news article and a comment piece by the BL’s Chief Executive, Lynne Brindley. The effect is spoiled a little by a typo in the headline of the latter piece, ‘we cannot allow the British Library’s peerless collection…
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Turning the pages, for Vista users only
"Turning the Pages 2.0™ runs with Internet Explorer on Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2 with .NET Framework version 3, on a broadband connection. We have detected that you do not have the necessary software. You may also need to check that your hardware meets the ‘Vista Premium Ready’ specification": that was the friendly error…
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English Short Title Catalogue
Hooray. The English Short Title Catalogue, which covers pre-1800 holdings from the BL and a number of other libraries, is online and free at http://estc.bl.uk/. I ran a search for Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici. Here are some screen shots (click on the thumbnails to enlarge them): Technorati Tags: englishshorttitlecatalogue
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British Library and undergraduates
In the Guardian, Lynne Brindley defends the British Library against charges that undergraduates are swamping the reading areas. The exchange sounds a little like a library suggestions book, with its interplay of reader and librarian. Tristram Hunt’s central criticism is wrong: it should be the duty of the national library to be open to any…
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British Library content strategy consultation
The British Library has published its draft content strategy for consultation, closing on 21 July. This is the first stage, comprising general principles and more detailed statements for the arts and humanities and social sciences. Science, technology and medicine are to follow at a later, unspecified date and are only covered in a preliminary way.…
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WiFi at the British Library once more
Heather Brooke, aka Secret Squirrel, who’s been campaigning about the excessive charges for WiFi access at the British Library, has now been given copy of the Service Agreement for public wireless local area service between British Library and Building Zones (BZ), after lodging a Freedom of Information Act request. She is also encouraging people to…