The British Library was well represented amongst the 500 delegates at a major ‘state of the field’ conference convened by The National Archives and Research Libraries UK. Held at the impressive Lowry Centre in what was a surprisingly sunny Salford for the middle of October, ‘Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities’ brought together 80 speakers from 50 organisations from the library, archives, heritage and academic sectors. Together we explored the power and potential of digital to preserve and enhance collections, to reach new audiences, and to foster new collaborations and partnerships.

We were delighted to support this flagship event. In addition to a busy exhibition stand promoting our growing range of user services (including the recently re-launched document supply service British Library On Demand), the conference gave our partners at Gale Cengage an opportunity to update delegates on the progress of our Early Arabic Printed Books collaboration. This is a ground-breaking project using newly developed optical character recognition software to create the first major searchable online archive of pre-20th century Arabic printed books.

British Library representatives at DCDC 2015: (left to right) Allan Sudlow, Mahendra Mahey, Sabine Hartmann and Jason Webber. (Photo by Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert).

Our other main contribution to the conference was a workshop showcasing some of the BL’s digital initiatives. Indeed, preparing the workshop underlined just how wide-ranging our innovations in this area have become as the Living Knowledge vision takes shape. Only a select sample of the Library’s digital tools, resources, infrastructure and skills made the ‘final cut’ to be included in the workshop, but this was more than enough to give the conference a flavour of our work.

Not that the conference was merely an excuse to pat ourselves on the back. The great value of this annual meeting is the opportunity it provides to address both opportunities and challenges in a spirit of collaboration and openness. Amongst the issues raised by this thought-provoking  event was what the Wellcome Trust’s Simon Chaplin called the ‘Google complex’: the instinct to attempt to digitise everything and make it available online, without first considering audience needs and the purposes for which new digital resources are actually going to be used.

Equally, when faced with a tsunami of data in born-digital form, it is essential to consider questions of appraisal and selection, as well as of access and preservation. Riding the digital wave means being able to respond to changing user needs and expectations – understanding what academics, independent researchers or broader public audiences and communities want from our content and collections, and why. As Valerie Johnson (The National Archives) stressed in another of the conference’s keynote speeches, this challenge underlines the importance of research to effective and service provision and collections management.

Embedding a strong, innovative, and collaborative research culture in the sector is an ambition that is certainly shared by the British Library. In this context, DCDC 2015 was a fantastic opportunity to showcase how our partnerships and engagement are both enabling new forms of research in the digital domain and ensuring that two of the Library’s core purposes – custodianship and research – go hand in hand.

Allan Sudlow, Head of Research Development, speaking at DCDC 2015. (Photo courtesy of DCDC 2015).

Our afternoon workshop on ‘Collecting and Connecting for Research’ offered delegates a whistle-stop tour of other BL digital initiatives, scholarship and partnerships – from collaborations to enhance the international data infrastructure such as DataCite and THOR, and major digitisation projects such as the Qatar Digital Library and Save Our Sounds, to vital initiatives to curate and preserve the UK web domain such as the UK Web Archive. This included a demonstration of the SHINE project to explore how the UK Web Archive can be used in practice as a research tool.

Another key aspect of the Library’s digital support for digital research is BL Labs – through which researchers can bring their ideas for using our digital collections to life with collaborative experimental projects. This spoke to a common challenge raised by the conference. As Simon Tanner from King’s College London later emphasised in the third conference keynote speech, digital researchers need to take risks. Developing innovative technological ways to answer new or previously unanswerable research questions requires space and freedom to try things out. It requires permission to be ‘disruptive’ (to use a frequent buzzword from the conference). It was inspiring to see how BL Labs has helped to fashion a truly creative space to address this challenge.

BL Labs manager Mahendra Mahey’s slides provide some fascinating examples of recent and current projects – recommended reading and viewing for anyone wanting to get a taste of the impact of digital scholarship and innovation at the Library.

Dr James Perkins

Research & PG Development Manager

 

The Library’s Chief Librarian Caroline Brazier will join the Trustee Board of CILIP – the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals – from the start of 2016. CILIP is the leading professional body for librarians across the UK and plays a key role in advocating on behalf of the profession and advancing professional skills and standards. 

Caroline has worked in academic and research libraries over the past thirty years and has performed a number of senior roles at the Library, including Director of Collections. Last year she was promoted to Chief Librarian. She is also currently a Trustee of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the Britten Pears Foundation and the Saga Trust.

Caroline Brazier.

“My whole professional career has been based on a belief that access to information, improving literacy and supporting lifelong learning are vital public services and that libraries are an essential part of that service,” said Caroline. “Library and information services in the UK, as well as internationally, are going through a period of unprecedented challenge and change. They need a strong, strategic voice to advocate for them. I believe CILIP can offer that voice and that I have relevant experience, skills and enthusiasm which I would like to contribute.”

Current Trustees Martyn Wade and David Byrne also were re-elected unopposed to the Board. The three Trustees will serve from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2019.

Nick Poole CILIP Chief Executive said, “I’m delighted to welcome Caroline to the CILIP Board, and to welcome experienced Trustees Martyn and David back to the Board. Our Trustees provide essential leadership to the library and information community. They ensure that CILIP is well run, financially sound and an effective organisation. With the launch of CILIP’s new strategic plan in 2016 I’m excited to have such an experienced and skilled Trustee Board to see us through this process and deliver our plans for growth.”

 

 

In a recent Living Knowledge blog we outlined the wealth of research materials available to Readers in Yorkshire via our Reading Room at Boston Spa, near Wetherby. At that point we have just made available legal deposit books and serials held on-site in Yorkshire, massively expanding the proportion of collection items accessible in Boston Spa.

We have now extended the range of accessible items still further and you can also request legal deposit and general reference books and serials held in London, for viewing in Boston Spa. This means that, for the first time, some 85% of the collection items requested in our London Reading Rooms are now also available to Readers in Yorkshire.

Along with UK publications received through legal deposit, the latest extension also makes available overseas books and serial titles purchased by the Library for the general reference collection.

Readers at Boston Spa can now request:

• Legal deposit collections held both in London and Yorkshire;
• General reference collections held both in London and Yorkshire, including purchased non-UK titles;
• Microfilmed newspapers;
• Print newspapers (where no surrogate copy is available);
• Document Supply collections.

Electronic resources including the British Newspaper Archive are also available.

As with other collections that have been made available recently at Boston Spa, requests should be made 48 hours in advance. Registered Readers can order items online and track the progress of their orders using My Reading Room Requests.    

Since the service was extended at the end of August, we have had positive feedback from regular users.

Dr Dorothea Debus, of the Department of Philosophy at the University of York, says: “The first item I ordered up from London was quite a specialized book, and in the past I would have either just ignored it, or else I would eventually probably have 'cracked' and bought it myself (even though I don't need it on my own bookshelf at all) in order to be able to look through it. Now I’m able to order such items to consult right here in Boston Spa, which strikes me as truly amazing. It makes a huge difference to working here and has turned what used to be a very good place to work into an amazing research facility.”

Users of St Pancras with a valid Reader Pass can use Boston Spa. Otherwise, you should pre-register for a Reader Pass online. Once you’ve registered, you can begin to request items and, within 48 hours, make your first visit to Boston Spa to obtain your Reader pass (which is also valid for our St Pancras Reading Rooms) and start exploring our collections.

Jerry Shillito

Head of Reader and Reference Services