Practical pointers on how to

use the British Library

Ian Walker – Content Expert,

Science, Technology & Medicine

www.bl.uk 2

Overview:

• Introduction to the British Library

• Practical tips

• Introduction to our catalogue – Explore the British Library

www.bl.uk 3

Getting a reader pass:

• To use our reading rooms you need a free reader

pass

• Visit the reader registration office on the UG floor.

Pre-register online to save time.

• You will need to bring two types of ID:

– Proof of address (such as a bank statement or

utility bill)

– Proof of signature (such as your passport or

driving licence)

– Business card, staff pass, professional

membership card

Please check our website – only certain types of ID

are suitable, and we can’t accept photocopies or

printouts. http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/inrrooms/stp/register/stpregister.html

www.bl.uk 4

You’ve got your reader pass…how do you

access the reading rooms?

• When you sign up for a reader pass you must

agree to our conditions of use

• As the repository for the UK’s published

heritage we have a duty to safeguard our

collections for future generations

• Certain rules and regulations that you might not

expect...

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Balancing collection care and access:

• You’re responsible for all items issued to you

• Collection materials must not be taken out of

the reading room and must be returned to

the issue desk when you’ve finished with

them

• Ask staff for help and advice if in doubt over

condition of collection items and handling

and copying

• Book supports, weights and stands are

available from the book delivery counters

• Reading Rooms staff are always available to

help, if in doubt ask!

www.bl.uk 7

The British Library Reading Rooms:

Within the St Pancras building we have 11 Reading Rooms, staffed by qualified

Reference Specialists from 9 Reference teams:

The majority of collection items can be ordered to any reading room but

some rare or valuable items can only be ordered to specific rooms

Open access material cannot be transferred to another reading room

• Science (Science 2 and 3)

• Social Sciences

• Humanities (Humanities 1 and 2)

• Business & Intellectual Property

• Maps & Manuscripts

• Rare Books & Music

• Sound & Vision

• Asian & African Studies

• News & Media (opening early 2014)

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Reading Room opening times:

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun &

Public

Holidays

• Science

• Social Sciences

• Business & IP Centre

• Humanities

• Rare Books & Music

10:00-

20:00

09:30-

20:00

09:30-

20:00

09:30-

20:00

09:30-

17:00

09:30-

17:00

Closed

• Asian and African Studies

• Maps

• Manuscripts

10:00-

17:00

09:30-

17:00

09:30-

17:00

09:30-

17:00

09:30-

17:00

09:30-

17:00

Closed

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Collection organisation:

• Due to scale of the library, the majority of

the items we hold are in storage and

need to be ordered to the reading rooms

through our catalogue – Explore the

British Library

• Depending on the location of the

material, delivery can take:

– 70 minutes if material is held in the

basements (must be requested by

16:00 for same day)

– 48 hours if material is held at

Boston Spa (no deliveries from

Boston Spa to St P on Saturdays)

Cut away image of the St Pancras

building, showing 4 floors of double-

height basements, which stretch down

to a depth of 25 metres. The Northern,

Piccadilly and Victoria tube lines

intersect the basements.

Take time to plan your visit to make best use of your time

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Science Reading Rooms:

• Different to most other BL reading rooms, open access collection

• Cover all STM subjects, material located on two floors:

Science 2 (Medicine and Life Sciences)

Science 3 (Physical Sciences and Engineering)

• 180 seats - 130 reader desks, 60 seats at PC terminals

• STM books and journals from the last 10 years on open shelves, older STM

material stored in Boston Spa and needs to be ordered via the catalogue

• Items take 48 hours – but can be ordered in advance via Explore

www.bl.uk 11

Ordering material:

• You can order 10 requests a day

• You can request remotely - 24/7

• You can track the status of your orders using

My Reading Room Requests

• Books will be held under your name for 3

working days

• 6 items can be reserved over night

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Electronic Resources:

• The Library subscribes to a large number of

electronic resources : databases, e-journals, e-

books

• Due to licence restrictions only available on-

site and only available on Library PCs

• There are a number of ways to find our e-

resources : browse A-Z journal lists, find

databases through our RR homepage or use

catalogue - Explore the British Library

• http://www.bl.uk/eresources/main.shtml

• http://explore.bl.uk/

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Using the catalogue:

• Explore the British Library is the main catalogue of the British Library. You can

use it to search, view and order collection items.

• Allows you search over 50 million records : – c.14 million records for the Library's holdings of books, journals, newspapers, conferences, maps,

scores etc.

– c.37 million journal article records, from our electronic table of contents system

– Thousands of records for British Library web pages

– c.5 million records of Library's Sound Archive items

– Web Archive links (freely available on the web)

– Thousands of electronic journal and book records and hundreds of database records (most

subscribed; some freely available on the web)

– More than 450 Research datasets records (freely available on the web)

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Thank you