The British Library: A Pioneer in Library Technology

On the fourth day of classes, we went to the largest library in the United Kingdom: The British Library. Located near the St. Pancreas and King's Cross Station's, The British Library is the paramount library in the United Kingdom, and possibly the 2nd or 3rd largest library in the entire world (The Library of Congress is the largest, by far.) The building of the library began in 1973 and it was finally finished in 1997 (yes it took quite awhile but the monetary needs for the library were seriously under. Before the building of this structure, the library was part of the British Museum but since the library receives one copy of every item published in the UK, it grows by 3 million items every year. To tell you everything I learned about the British Library would take several paragraphs and would be too much to put into words. Thus, I want to focus on the technological aspects of this library that make it a pioneer in library technology and one of the premier libraries in the world.

Library Collection: From the outside, the library is very deceiving. It looks as if could not hold even a quarter of the roughly 180 million items that are in the library's collection. That is because not all of the collection is located at the British Library. Only 60% of the library's collection is actually on site and the other 40% is located in West Yorkshire. Of that 60%, it is located underground in a subterranean tower block. There are four levels of shelving underneath the library, where most of the books are kept. This tower block is kept at 17 degrees Celsius and 50% humidity, the temperature and humidity levels that will preserve the books best. There are many issues with books being underground and the major one is the water table. The shelves are located 73-74 feet under the water table and the flooding of the stacks could occur. Thus, there are large underground cisterns that collects the water around the tower and then pumps it into the Thames.

Access to the Collection: Accessing the collection is a nice mixture of automated and personal attention. When a researcher comes to the library, they must know what they are looking for. They then enter their information into a computer and wait to be called by an attendant. Here, the British Library employee will further question them about their visit, make sure their credentials are valid, and assist them in getting the documents they need. The researcher then heads to one of the 11 reading rooms and chooses their desired items from the collection.

ABRS: This information is sent to the ABRS (Automated Book Retrieval System) or the coolest piece of technology I've seen in a library. It holds all of the catalog information and knows where all of the books are located in the library. It prints out two slips for each request: one to be placed in the spot where the book is removed from the shelf and the other is placed in the book itself. The book is retrieved by one of several runners that work in the underground tower. The ABRS tells them what track the book needs to be on to be sent to the correct reading room and the runner scans the book out of the shelves and onto the track where it is sent to the correct room. There is over 1.5 miles of track in the library and it will take any book to any reading room above. From here, the researcher has access to the book while in the library and must then return it at the end of the day.

Touch Screen Technology: In addition to the technology that exists for the researchers in the British Library, visitors and researchers can also access several of the library's more treasured items through touch-screens scattered throughout the library. The British Library has developed an in-house touch screen technology, called "Turning the Pages," and has scanned books like John James Audobon's Birds of America. This book is massive in size, measuring roughly 39 x 26 inches. It is also a treasured book, for it is the original edition of the book as Audubon could only find publishers in the UK for his book. Now everyone can access it, either in the library or at home, using this technology. One can turn the pages themselves, zoom in and out to see the detail of the life-size birds, and listen to someone give more information about the book itself. Here is the website for the British Library's Virtual Library. It's a really great program that allows worldwide access to the more fragile yet important parts of the collection.

While the British Library is not the largest library in the world, it is definitely the richest in the diversity of its collection and the technological services it offers its patrons. It's a beautiful building and a real testament to what a library can be in the modern day.