In the British Library January 2025
I’ve been a reader at the British Library and before that the Round Reading Room since 1984.
Since the October 2023 cyber attack things have been difficult, not least for Library workers who have been working to sort out the significant issues the attack raised.
Progress has been made. A remote ordering service was restored in October 2024. Its clunky but it does work. Access to much of the BL collections has also been restored. On the downside there is still no PC access in the St Pancras reading rooms (personal devices only) and hence no access to a range of electronic resources that prior to October 2023 were only available in the reading rooms (at least without paying)
Visiting on a typically miserable January afternoon this week, the reading rooms looked rather better populated than they have been since October 2023. They are a good studying place with working wi-fi so how many readers were using BL material, as opposed to something else, its impossible to say. Certainly the shelves at the issue desk which hold books ordered in advance still don’t look exactly overburdened.
Kudos again to the Library workers and perhaps the new CEO Rebecca Lawrence will opine at the some stage.
Why the Government, the last and the current, have not acted to help the UK’s National Library does seem to reflect the times…
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