BRITISH LIBRARY RESEARCH AND INNOVATION REPORT 3
The Impact of Digital Resources on British Library Reading Rooms
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study was commissioned and executed in Spring 1996. Its objective was:
to determine the likely impacts of digital resources on the future demand for British
Library reading room seats in the Library’s new building at St Pancras.
It takes into account a wide range of digital resources, including OPACs, Internet
resources and CD-ROMs. Effects due to their use both inside and outside reading rooms
are considered.
1.The introduction of digital resources will have a range of impacts on demand.
Six different impacts are identified, each with unique characteristics. It is not
possible to quantify the impacts, but trends are identified in each case. The six
impacts are:
- Access to BL Catalogues: if the Library enhances its catalogue distribution by
digital means, then demand will increase. Because provision is already good, the
increase will be small (see section 6).
- Access to Digitised BL Resources within Reading Rooms:
There is no quantitative
basis for estimating any change in demand for reading room space, but as there are
conflicting trends, the most reasonable guess is that the effect will be roughly
neutral (see section 7).
- Access to Digitised BL Resources from outside Reading Rooms:
A reduction of demand for reading room space can be expected. The greatest effect - a
maximum of 9% - will be in SRIS. Some reading rooms will see little or no
reduction in demand, depending on the selection of materials to be digitised
(see section 8).
- Access to Non-BL Networked Resources within Reading Rooms:
Provision of access to the Internet from within reading rooms will increase the demand
for space (see section 9).
- Access to Non-BL Networked Resources from outside Reading Rooms:
Some reduction in demand for reading room space can be anticipated (see section 10).
- CD-ROMs in Reading Rooms:
The addition of CD-ROMs in large numbers to the Library’s holdings may increase demand
for space, depending on policies adopted (see section 11).
2. The magnitudes of effects depend in part on the future of the Internet. This
future is uncertain.
3. Development of more reliable estimates would require detailed studies, for
several reasons. In some cases, trends and the likely directions of changes in demand
are recognised.
4. Much of the data required for detailed study is not readily available.
5. Little work has been done on this subject.
6. There is considerable interest from other libraries in this subject.
The remainder of this report presents the context, findings and analyses which
support the above conclusions.
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