The British Library tease

Kim Anderson

There are some things in life that once they happen, there’s no going back, your life is changed forever. There’s the nice as in your first kiss and there’s the not so nice, as in your actual first kiss that you’ve conveniently chosen to forget. Seeing the new British Library document delivery interlibrary loan system (BLDSS) was like that, encompassing both the nice and the not so nice. It’s nice as it is absolutely brilliant and yet we have to wait for it for a few months, which is not so nice. In experiencing this life-changing event, we have to forget about it, for now. However I will relive the painful moment for you; it’s going to get personal. In the tradition of the British Library tease though, I will describe the whole day first, leading up to when we were shown the new system just as I lived it; unfortunately we had our tour first and the demonstration last, the other group got to see the demonstration first and the tour last. If you want to see the description of the new service, read paragraph nine.

Right from the off, my luck was in and the day stayed like that. It was going to be the longest trip I had ever made on my own and it went completely smoothly, who could ask for more? Well, I could, and the sun had duly come out for the trip home. After discovering that the British Library were going to be coming to Cambridge to demonstrate the new system and I needn’t have gone in the first place, I was searching for a reason to be going. I found one when I decided to treat it as a test, to see how well I could cope on my own, particularly when feeling bad after having to wake up at 5:30am... I am naturally a follower, not a leader. I have a poor sense of direction and I get flustered easily. I don’t like travelling, but love seeing new places, meeting new people and experiencing new things. But most and worst of all, I don’t do being alone. Where else is more lonely than when surrounded by people you don’t know? Little did I know that each of those negatives was going to be blown out of the water; I can lead when forced, I didn’t get lost once, even when I didn’t know where I was going which was impressive, though tense I kept in control, trains are the best mode of travel and I managed to make acquaintances out of strangers. I did almost get lost trying to find the British Library representatives at York Station, but I followed a likely looking librarian and lo and behold, she was a librarian and she was going to Boston Spa too! I told her that I thought she looked like a librarian and she didn’t even take offence, she just accepted it. Having made a new acquaintance before even getting to Boston Spa, I was doing fine. The bus journey took me right back to school trips, but we were all pretty well behaved. When you’re tense, your senses are on full alert and mine seemed to be working on hyperdrive as I spent most of the journey marvelling at the clouds, the daffodils, the cherry blossom, the buildings and the lambs gambolling in the fields. To have my mind open like that was perfect preparation for the tour of Boston Spa and the demonstration of the new system.

When we first arrived, the cynicism in the room was tangible; I expect everyone had come more in hope than expectation. The BL staff were teasing us from the off saying that it’s not a new interface; it’s a totally revolutionised system. It’s taken 2 years and £6 million, half funded by the HEFCE. It improves the efficiency of their service and thus our services. They took great pains to explain it all and it soon turned into hype. I reckon we all thought that the new system could never live up to everything they were saying. I’m glad to say we were wrong.

As I mentioned before, we had a tour first and it was pretty extensive. They started with the wow factor. The new high-tech “stacks” for want of a better and more official word, is storage building better? were suitably impressive and very vertiginous. My sense of measurement is probably worse than my sense of direction, but I’d say from the viewing platform I was on, there was a 20ft drop and 50ft to the ceiling. However despite all the talk of the technological advancements, I couldn’t Tweet as there was not only no Wi-Fi coverage, but also not even phone coverage in the whole of the Boston Spa. Luckily there was sporadic 3G access, but the signals were willow-the-wisps in the ether. So I just wrote the Tweets there and then and sent them when I could. The reason for my Twitter obsession was because I had been entrusted with the work iPhone and had adopted Tweeting enthusiastically on the train journey.

Then we were taken round the different departments. One of the best parts of the day was seeing the other end of the document delivery service. We spoke to a lady who was retiring in 3 weeks so will miss out on the new revolutionary service; she was typically sanguine about it. She scans 25 items an hour and 165 a day! That’s not just her, that’s the daily target. Due to the copyright and licensing restrictions, she has to scan the article or book chapter each time it’s been requested, therefore adding to her workload as she can’t just sent it from the previous time she scanned it. We saw the a lot of scanners that day: standard scanners, a scanner that turns the pages for you and one for old and delicate books that looks like alien technology and wouldn’t seem out of place in the background of Doctor Who. All this was at the least interesting and at the most fascinating, but was only a precursor to the main event.

As we were going round, I could sense a common thread: budget constraints, job cuts and asbestos closures. One person said everyone was “battle weary” which was clear for all to see, but the sense of hope in the new system was just as palpable as the cynicism from us. It did wonders to alleviate our scepticism. If I was in a more imaginative mood I’d describe a battle between hope and cynicism with hope victorious. These thoughts were echoed all around the building and highlighted in the presentation before the demonstration: due to the public sector cuts, the BL has to save £24 million in 4 years. When you bear in mind that they spend £10 million on acquisitions, that’s not inconsiderable. They have also worked out because of the services they provide, they can save the government £200 million. If that isn’t an advert for the #savelibraries campaign, I don’t know what is. The one thing I wanted to know about is the asbestos problem. They jokingly refused to say the “a” word, but it means the same thing for them, because they can’t get hold of it, they have to find it from elsewhere too. There was no new information apart from 55% of the books that were unavailable due to the asbestos closures will now be back online by the end of May.

The reason for the new system is simple; they have been using the same technology as when the service was conceived. With the advent of the online retail industry, it was due for an upgrade. Whereas the current system is based on a library catalogue, the new system is more like shopping on the internet. This has also changed the way our patrons think. The way they put it is “just in case vs. just in time.” The former is the old system and the latter the new system. From what I’ve seen, apart from books for reading lists, the supply on demand model is the way things are going. In another tease before the demonstration, they showed us some of their statistics: they have a 75% fulfilment rate as 4 out of 5 requests are satisfied; it’s 65% after the asbestos problem. Using partnerships they’re hoping to get that to 100%. There’s also only been a £1.75 price increase since 2004.

Finally they got to the new system. It’s a full replacement for the current system, but they will run concurrently as it’s not compulsory to transfer to the new system. However there will be changes nonetheless; you’ll be pleased to hear there will be less reply codes: 25 out of the 100+ there are now. The new system is close to the end of testing and the roll-out will start in July; there’s a “phased deployment” and those libraries that helped develop the system will get first dibs. Everyone will have it by the end of September. However there will be limited functionality at first. The functionality is impressive; online tracking and despatch dates; colour rather than black and white PDFs; availability in real time with prices; non-reply code emails; multiple users so you can allow others, even students and faculty, to use it (you can let them place orders if you like, with your approval of course); baskets like most retail websites; searchable order history and oh joy of joys, you can change an order after you’ve placed it, rather than in effect ordering it again. The list is incessant.

I was tired by the end of it, but happy. I had also come away with ideas for a paperless system after networking at lunchtime. Not knowing anyone does wonders for your mingling skills! I’ll leave you with my penultimate tweet: “#bldss summary: new system is fantastic. Closer to generic retail set-ups with order tracking and the like. A much more transparent system.”