Innovation with reducing budgets British Library
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Transcript of Innovation with reducing budgets British Library
SLIC Innovation & Development Day2nd November 2011
Managing Innovation with Reducing Budgets
Steve Morris
Director of Finance & Corporate Services The British Library
British Library Historical Collection iPad App.
A wealth of resources
British Library 2020 Vision
Guarantee access for future generations
Enable access to everyone who wants to do research
Support research communities in key areas for social and economic benefit
Enrich the cultural life of the nation
Lead and collaborate in growing the world’s knowledge base
www.bl.uk/2020vision
All that….and make the cuts as well?!
• Never any Government funding for digitisation
• 2010 Comprehensive Spending review meant:• 3% in year funding cut in 2010/11• 15% reduction in operating grant• halving of our capital grant
• Represents lowest real terms funding level since BL created in 1972• staffing already reduced by over 200 in eighteen months• major reductions to acquisition budgets• many “discretionary” budgets halved
• Traditional commercial income (Document Supply) in continuing decline
• New delivery models the only way to square the circle• illustrated by evolution of our approach to digitisation
Boutique Digitisation
Characteristics of Boutique Digitisation
Self-selecting i.e. obvious treasures
Drivers: cultural restitution, wider public access
Sometimes private sponsorship, especially for iconic items
Subsume costs e.g. hosting
External Funding. e.g. Dept of Ed
Mass Digitisation
Why Get into Mass Digitisation?
• Digitisation of holdings
Improving access to holdings online – Public Value Remit
• Access to new funding sources
• Using skills / technologies not inherent in the Library
• Revenue
• Positive outcome: PR benefit.
Mass Library Digitisation Projects – Funding and Sustainability Models
• Public Sector / Lottery Funding – usually free, open to all, few, if any user restrictions..
• Traditional secondary publisher models. e.g. Gale, ProQuest,
• Search Engine Model. e.g. Microsoft and Google
• Hybrid Models – Public / Private Partnerships.
The digitisation of newspapers
Newspaper digitisation – British Library and brightsolid partnership
May 2010 – partnership to digitise 40 million pages from the national newspaper collection announced by the British Library and brightsolid
10-year partnership to make millions of historic newspaper pages available online for the first time
First-hand reporting on great historical events (The Great Exhibition, Crimean War, sinking of The Titanic, etc) and a wealth of detail on every aspect of local and national life
A mix of out-of-copyright (pre-1900) and in-copyright material, subject to consent from relevant rightsholders
Digitised pages to be available paid-for via the web or free on-site at the British Library; a creative solution for Higher Education will be found
On expiry of the contract the material will likely be free to the nation
First tranche of material to become available online in 2011
Microsoft – British Library 100,000 19th Century Books
Key Features of the Google deal
250,000 titles to be digitised
Date range 1700-1870
BL chooses (as long as not duplicating)
Off site & overseas
Free to view on Google books
BL free to re-version & reuse as it wishes
- non-commercial use
-eg Europeana
Summary
• nothing unique about the BL I’m sure
• innovative business models not the only way
• traditional efficiency and continuous improvement a crucial under-pinning
• but new approaches crucial to allow us to be credible in working towards our medium term vision and goals
• several new partnerships under discussion• some (not all) will bear fruit
• only when you look back that you realise how far you’ve come!