BRITISH LIBRARY RESEARCH AND INNOVATION REPORT 3

The Impact of Digital Resources on British Library Reading Rooms

4. WHAT ARE DIGITAL RESOURCES?

The definition of digital resources used here is explored in section 2.1. In summary, Internet resources, CD-ROMs and the Library’s own digitised materials are considered.

4.1 Factors

A large number of effects associated with digital resources might affect reading rooms. We have to consider resources referred to from within the Library, resources referred to from outside the Library, free and chargeable resources, and so on. For example:

• increasing availability of digital resources on the Internet may allow readers to discover information from their own desktops without needing to visit the Library;
• availability of many CD-ROMs might increase the number of readers wishing to refer to them.

Clearly several factors need to be considered. The five factors which could have an effect are:

• Source;
• Content;
• Format;
• Usage;
• Access.

The possible natures of these factors is shown in the following table in Figure 1:

Source	 	Content			Format* 	  	Usage	    	Access

Digitised BL	Metadata 		Text or data	Fact finding	From within 
material 	(catalogue record)					reading room		

Free Internet	Data (monograph, 	Low-resolution 	Studying 	Remote from 
resource	serial etc)		image				reading room

Chargeable 				High-resolution Browsing
Internet**  				image
resource	
				
Offline resource 			Sound
(eg CD-ROM)				Motion				

*This definition of Format is intentionally not academically rigorous, Rather, it is chosen to identify the formats which are, or which could be, significantly different in terms of their effects on reading rooms.

**Strictly, commercial network services which are not presented through the Internet should be included here; the term Internet is used for simplicity.

Figure 1: Full Model of Digital Resource Attributes

Each combination of the different factors’ natures is different. For example,

• a digitised BL resource which is a serial in the form of text used for browsing within a reading room may have a different impact from
• a digitised BL resource which is a catalogue in the form of text used for fact finding within a reading room.

To arrive at well-reasoned quantitative estimates, each combination should be examined separately. By simple combinatorial arithmetic, there are 4 x 2 x 5 x 3 x 2 = 240 combinations. The effects of each of these 240 potential scenarios should be considered carefully, and this potentially for each reading room. In each case, there would be consideration of:

• the number of readers;
• the potential population of readers;
• the levels of readers’ use of materials;
• how the above may be changed by the digital format;

etc. It is not appropriate to attempt an exercise on this scale in the present study, so a simpler representation is called for.

4.2 A Model of Digital Resources

The model defined by the table above can be simplified by aggregating the combinations, discarding less significant aggregations until the number of scenarios is manageable. The basis for the aggregation and discarding is qualitative, applying an understanding of the likely nature of the effects, as informed by interviews conducted during the study. The final aggregation used consists of six scenarios:

• Access to the Library’s catalogues (in any digital form, from anywhere);
• Use of digitised versions of the Library’s collections, from within the reading rooms;
• Use of digitised versions of the Library’s collections, from outside the Library (principally by means of the Internet);
• Use of Internet resources which are not digitised versions of the Library’s collections, from within the reading rooms;
• Use of Internet resources which are not digitised versions of the Library’s collections, from outside the Library (ie conventional network research);
• Use of CD-ROMs in reading rooms.

These are conveniently represented in the form of the graphical model in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Simplified Model of Digital Resource Attributes

In this model, the divisions between BL/non-BL resources and usage inside/outside of reading rooms is represented in a table in the centre of the model. Access to catalogues extends to within and outside the Library, and this is represented accordingly by a separate rectangle on the left. CD-ROMs used in reading rooms present different characteristics, and so are represented separately in a symbol on the right.

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