Times Copyright Acknowledged (221026)
The British Library has to modernise — or risk decline
The British Library is home to Magna Carta, Shakespeare’s First Folio and Jane Austen’s writing desk, while we also collect everything published in the UK. You might think our status as the home of British literary culture is hard to challenge but in the digital age and with increasing pressure on public finances our nation’s library is at a critical point.
Institutions that endure are those that understand which parts of their heritage are sacred and which must evolve. It could be assumed that AI diminishes institutions such as the British Library. The reverse is true.
Large language models can generate answers in seconds. What they cannot replace is authenticity and trust built over centuries. The role of the library is becoming more valuable, not less.
Physical collections are tangible records that allow people to trace ideas to their origins, test assumptions and make up their own minds. Amid the blizzard of information and misinformation, the role of our national library is to preserve humanity’s ability to ask better questions, think critically and retain agency.
But we are at risk of losing what makes the library so important.
Research habits are shifting. The real terms value of our grant funding is worth two thirds of what it was a decade ago, even as our collection grows. Governments rightly face scrutiny over every pound of public money spent, making it critical the library demonstrates value for money.
Standing still would not be responsible. The choice we face is between modernisation and decline.
We choose modernisation. If we want a national library that is a worthy peer of the Library of Congress or the Bibliothèque Nationale de France we must make better use of our physical estate, including the transformation of three reading rooms into a new flexible workspace. We want our eight other reading rooms and access to manuscripts, maps and sounds to remain free — and so we have to open up more of the library’s workspace and storage facilities to commercial use, to contribute to diversifying our income streams.
There are always risks in change.
But there is a greater risk in believing that institutions can remain relevant simply because they have existed for decades. The British Library’s purpose remains: to preserve knowledge, expand access to it and inspire discovery.
Our task is not to choose between maintaining the library and modernising it. It is to recognise that, today, they are the same thing.
Institutions that endure are those that understand which parts of their heritage are sacred and which must evolve. It could be assumed that AI diminishes institutions such as the British Library. The reverse is true.
Large language models can generate answers in seconds. What they cannot replace is authenticity and trust built over centuries. The role of the library is becoming more valuable, not less.
Physical collections are tangible records that allow people to trace ideas to their origins, test assumptions and make up their own minds. Amid the blizzard of information and misinformation, the role of our national library is to preserve humanity’s ability to ask better questions, think critically and retain agency.
But we are at risk of losing what makes the library so important.
Research habits are shifting. The real terms value of our grant funding is worth two thirds of what it was a decade ago, even as our collection grows. Governments rightly face scrutiny over every pound of public money spent, making it critical the library demonstrates value for money.
Standing still would not be responsible. The choice we face is between modernisation and decline.
We choose modernisation. If we want a national library that is a worthy peer of the Library of Congress or the Bibliothèque Nationale de France we must make better use of our physical estate, including the transformation of three reading rooms into a new flexible workspace. We want our eight other reading rooms and access to manuscripts, maps and sounds to remain free — and so we have to open up more of the library’s workspace and storage facilities to commercial use, to contribute to diversifying our income streams.
There are always risks in change.
But there is a greater risk in believing that institutions can remain relevant simply because they have existed for decades. The British Library’s purpose remains: to preserve knowledge, expand access to it and inspire discovery.
Our task is not to choose between maintaining the library and modernising it. It is to recognise that, today, they are the same thing.
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