Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 217)
THURSDAY 16 MARCH 2000
MR BRIAN
LAKE AND
MR DAVID
ALEXANDER
200. One of the best ways of conserving a lot
of this material is to ensure that it is never handled. Would
that be right? Therefore, it would be best if people can read
it in some other form so they do not have to physically handle
it. Very rare material inevitably is damaged. Every time someone
picks up a book, there is some limited damage, even if it is just
the sweat on the outside of the book.
(Mr Lake) There is a case for this with some books,
where conservation and value outweigh picking them up and using
them, which is the way that books should be read.
(Mr Alexander) Books are valued for their information
and also as themselves. If people are only interested in information,
then bring on the days of digitalisation. The object itself will
be increasingly valued because people will look at books from
all kinds of different angles. Historic books were only the beginnings
of the study, for example, of publishing and awareness of historic
printing. Very little study has been done, for example, about
the history of individual publishing houses or even the printing
works. They are a very important part of the history of the book
in Britain. My evidence relates to the disposal of great collections
of books which has been happening with people hardly being aware
of it over the last few years. I think this will be very much
regretted in the future when people want to study the book as
a cultural object in its own right. They will find that the books
are not there to be studied.
201. My view is that a book is basically a source
of information. That is its major use. If it is an object, it
can be in a glass case in such a way that you do not have to handle
it, or you can digitalise that as well. Do you think your view
of the British Library has been very largely based around books
and readership and your readers? It is a very elitist view of
the use of a library which is of course paid for by all the taxpayers
in this country.
(Mr Lake) I do not think it is elitist to emphasise
the core importance of the British Library. It is there as a repository
for as many books as they are able to keep, literally to keep
them for the future. That is their basic function. Adding on the
extra ability to be able to widen the scope of access is obviously
important, but you must not forget the basic function of a library.
202. What about the fact that the British Library,
I gather, is now wanting to include non-book materials—in
other words, electronic materials—within its remit?
(Mr Lake) You cannot deny that, because a new medium
emerges and the Library, as a conserver of up until now printed
books, etc., must also conserve the new medium. It is therefore
important that they should be looking at this. They have taken
in the National Sound Archive recordings and it is a logical extension
but it is not quite the same thing.
203. I do not think I am suggesting that the
British Library should not continue its role as a keeper of books,
but a balance between spending money on accessing by new technology
is going to become increasingly as important, and possibly more
important, particularly for those people who do not live and work
in London. For a reader living in my constituency in Glasgow to
access a book at the present time in the British Library will
cost him somewhere in the region of £500-£600 in terms
of fares down, hotel accommodation and all the rest of it. If
that book was available to him on the Internet, it is a local
phone call, 20, 30 or 40p.
(Mr Lake) I think it is a matter of resources. If
you can click your fingers and add all these things on tomorrow,
I think everybody would say it is wonderful but at the moment
you have to say that the current state of affairs with new technology
at the British Library is very much like a lot of other places,
but it is much more complicated. You have various systems which
are really incompatible there and you have books which should
be on catalogues so that the readers will know they are there,
whether it is online or in the Library, and those books somehow
slip between the various computer systems that they have. I know
that the Library itself wants to institute the equivalent of the
old general catalogue in printed form into a new central, corporate
bibliographic database, but at the moment they have not even got
that right yet. If you start talking about digitalising books,
which is expensive and you are talking about millions of books,
something like that in terms of new technology should be got right
before going down the line that you are suggesting.
Chairman: In view of the fact that the
British Library deals with this in their memorandum, I think it
would be more appropriate for it to be taken up with the British
Library when they come before us later in the morning.
Mrs Organ
204. I am interested in a couple of bits of
information about your readers' group. How many people are you
representing in your readers' group?
(Mr Lake) At the moment, very few.
205. Are we talking about 3, 300, 3000?
(Mr Lake) In terms of active people, probably about
ten. I make absolutely no apologies for saying that we have been
a pressure group that has tried to keep in touch with developments
in the Library over the last few years in making specific points.
We have had support over the years from up to 600 people.
206. Roughly, are they young people? Are they
retired people? Are they men? Are they women?
(Mr Lake) They tend to be older readers. They were
people who had a very strong relationship with the old British
Library, as it was, and very much remembered the British Museum
Library before that, who used the old Round Reading Room and the
North Library on a regular basis. Quite a number of the people
who have been involved have found it very difficult to transfer
their affections to St Pancras.
207. You said in your submission to us that
you are a firm believer in the book as the best medium for continued
passing on of knowledge, but from what you have said to Mr Maxton
do you see the British Library, in its old form or in its present
St Pancras form, as a museum or is it somewhere where there is
access to this knowledge for people? Is it a repository of collected
works that will add to our knowledge or is it a museum?
(Mr Lake) In the sense that a museum conserves things
and keeps them for the future, yes, there is that element to it
but obviously access should be as wide as is possible within the
framework of conservation. That is where the point of balance
between conservation and use is. Those are decisions that have
to be made every day within the library itself. Some books can
be damaged by handling, in the same way as some pictures are under
glass.
208. You think it is acceptable that a small
group of readers should, at the taxpayers' expense, be able to
handle these books because you really love and understand them?
(Mr Lake) I would use the analogy with the Round Reading
Room as it was. Effectively, it was just a very beautiful and
efficient workshop. If you are a carpenter, you need decent space
in which to do your job. The Round Reading Room was for academics
and people who are using books for their work and their leisure
to some extent, but certainly primarily for work purposes. That
is where they worked. This function is transferred to St Pancras.
209. If we take academics that are principally
working out of university libraries, the wonderful thing about
university libraries is that thousands of young people who are
students have access to the same materials.
(Mr Lake) I think you will find—the British
Library representatives will no doubt tell you—that the
numbers of readers are increasing greatly. They certainly were
increasing greatly before the move and I believe after the move
have continued to do so. Students, I believe now, are welcome.
210. You said how a book should be read and
you physically picked something up and you went like that. Is
it your view that material should only be read in the bound, printed
form?
(Mr Lake) No, of course not. The OED, for instance,
is just coming online and there is an awful lot of information
material. Britannica has gone online entirely. Stuff that needs
to be looked up for information purposes.
211. What about if I wanted to read The History
of Karl Marx?
(Mr Lake) Perhaps I am getting older than I feel but
I do not think I would want to read that on the screen.
212. You said in your evidence that you believe,
from your point of view, that the appointment of a new librarian,
rather than a director general who is merely a manager of library
resources, is central to the future of the British Library. Do
you think that Lynne Brindley, who has been announced as the chief
executive from 1 July 2000, will fulfil the librarian role?
(Mr Lake) I hope so. I have spoken to people who know
her. I have tried to contact her but she has very diplomatically
said that she would prefer to talk after she gets into post. The
signs are there that she will be the right person for the job
and has a library background. Inevitably, over the last ten years
or so, the primary function of the management has been to get
into St Pancras and the librarian aspects of the British Library
have been put somewhat on the back foot by the physical need to
move millions of books into a new place, which has not been without
controversy.
Chairman: Mr Maxton dotcom and Mrs Organ
have made very important points but they are not mutually exclusive,
are they? To get information online so that people all over the
country can take advantage of the British Library, not a St Pancras
library, is very useful indeed but at the same time I think Mrs
Organ was right to use the word "museum" because it
is a museum of books as well and a very precious museum of books.
I do not believe for a moment that either of my colleagues was
implying that this building, or some such building, should not
be there with all its wonderful contents and its policy of acquisition,
but they were making the point that, since this is the British
Library, its contents, in so far as it is possible—and we
will be exploring that with the British Library, when they come
before us in a moment—should be accessible to all of the
people who, as Mr Maxton says, cannot afford to come down and
who want to study at midnight or something like that, which they
can easily do.
Mr Maxton
213. You do not want to be changed to the British
Multimedia Resource Centre?
(Mr Lake) No. The British Library must not try to
do too many things. There are limited resources. That is why we
talk about focusing.
Chairman
214. I had the great privilege a short while
ago of going to the Lebanon and visiting Byblos, after which all
libraries are named.
(Mr Alexander) Mr Maxton rather exaggerated about
the costs of—
215. Mr Maxton never exaggerates.
(Mr Alexander) He did not mention inter-library loan
which could have brought the book to his student in Glasgow. I
am sure you will want to ask the British Library people about
the working of that, which makes books accessible to a large number
of people all over the country.
Mr Maxton
216. But very much more slowly than, one, they
have to find the book and, two, they have to transport it, whereas,
just to give a small example, this report that came out yesterday
about Ken Livingstone's activities. I was discussing that with
my son in Glasgow as it was published here, because he was reading
it on the Internet.
(Mr Lake) As David Alexander has come with particular
knowledge of books being sold from libraries, we just feel that
there is a great danger both for the British Library itself and
public libraries in general that there is an awful lot of jargon
coming in at the front door and an awful lot of books going out
the back door. We would certainly encourage you to ask the director
of The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to look at the
issue of disposal of books which is being done on a very ad
hoc basis by library authorities and also theft from libraries.
If books are disappearing from libraries and it is not being properly
monitored, the books are being sold off at below their proper
price and maybe this is worth noting.
Chairman
217. Thank you. I am grateful to you for reminding
us that I have spoken on occasion in praise of busybodies and,
without any personal reflection on either of yourselves, pains
in the neck as well. Those are the people who get things done
in this country. Thank you very much indeed.
(Mr Lake) Could I present to the Committee a copy
of a book which I picked up from my stock yesterday, The Public
Library System of Great Britain, a report published during
the Second World War? It opens with a very good description of
the book and its importance which I would like to have seen in
the British Library's report, but it was not there.
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