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Saturday, November 6, 2010

The British Library Offers Free Access to Bibliographic Records


The British Library will make its extensive collections of bibliographic records available for free to researchers and other libraries. The U.K. national library has around 14 million catalogue records comprising a wealth of bibliographic data. The initiative will help expose this vast dataset to users worldwide, allowing researchers and other libraries to access and retrieve bibliographic records for publications dating back centuries and relating to every conceivable subject area.

For libraries, free access to these records will help reduce the effort involved in cataloging their holdings. For the wider research community, they are a valuable source of data to help advance knowledge.

As the national library of the U.K., the British Library seeks to provide world class information services to the academic, business, research, and scientific communities and offer access to a large and comprehensive research collection. The library’s collections include 150 million items from every era of written human history beginning with Chinese oracle bones dating from 300 BC, right up to the latest ejournals.