Science at the British Library - a historical background to the reading rooms, collections and services

Richard Wakeford

January 2014

2

Patent Office Library

1852 - Patent Law Amendment Act 1852 requires “true copies of all specifications to be open to inspection by the public”

1853 - Report of the Commissioners of Patents recommends that the Patent Office Library should cover “the scientific and mechanical works of all nations”

3

Patent Office Library

1855 - Patent Office Library opens at Southampton Buildings

1902 - New purpose Patent Office Library is built

4

National Reference Library of Science and Invention

1966 - NRLSI opens

Management transferred from the Board of Trade to the British Museum

5

The British Library

1972 - British Library Act declares that “The British Library shall be under the control and management of a public authority, to be known as "the British Library Board", whose duty it shall be to manage the Library as a national centre for reference, study and bibliographical and other information services, in relation both to scientific and technological matters and to the humanities.”

1974 - Science Reference Library (SRL) opens as part of the new British Library

1984 - Renamed Science Reference and Information Service (SRIS)

6

St Pancras

1976 - St Pancras site is bought and design of the new building starts

1984 - Construction starts

1997 - Humanities reading room opens

1999 - The Science, Technology and Business (STB) reading rooms open

2005 - Science Reading Room, SPIS Reading Room, Business and Intellectual Property Centre open

7

Collections and catalogues

1855 - Patent Office Library collection covers engineering and physical sciences

1880s - POL classification scheme introduced

1930 - POL card catalogue

8

Collections and catalogues

1960 - Biomedical and earth sciences collections transferred from the BM to NRLSI

1963 - 1978 NRLSI/ SRL/ SRIS classification scheme

1987 - SCICAT online and fiche

1989 - BL OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue)

1994 - Patent jukebox for digitised full text

1997- OPAC97 web based catalogue

9

Collections and catalogues – St Pancras

2003 - Dewey classification scheme

2004 - Digital access replaces printed patent collection

2005 - Primo/ Explore

2013 - Non-Print Legal Deposit

10

Reader Services

1855 - Reference services

1918 - Photocopy service

1972 - Online search service

1976 - Medline via Internet/ARPANET pilot (BL R&D/ NLM)

1977 - British Library Automated Information Service (BLAISE)

1984 - Business Information Service followed by information services for biotechnology, environment, health, and social policy

1988 - CD-ROM databases in RR

11

Index to foreign scientific periodicals contained in the Patent Office Library

1856 - the Prussian Patent Office publish Repertorium der Technischen Literatur. POL translated it into English and adopted its subject headings

1865 - Bennet Woodcroft starts Index to foreign scientific periodicals contained in the Patent Office Library

Author / title / classified - fortnightly publication and 6 month cumulations with index

First modern bibliographic source in English

“ This knowledge is diffused through so many channels and hidden under languages so various as to be difficult of access even to the rich and learned, whilst it is entirely beyond the reach of the operative classes.” Benjamin Woodcroft

12

13

14

A Room near Chancery Lane by Charles Dickens

.

Mr. Woodcroft has collected a valuable store of books of reference relating to patents;………….. The room near Chancery Lane, opened for the reader's especial benefit,, remains yet to be noticed. The building once occupied by the Masters in Chancery, is now placed at the disposal of the Commissioners of Patents. One among the many rooms in this building is now a reading-room, open to the public for the study of any and everything relating to patents. A small room it is: much too small, indeed; but as it is the beginning of a good thing, its gradual growth may be pleasantly watched hereafter.

It is well filled, and tended by officials, who show the utmost courtesy to visitors having any reasonable motive for going thither: mere curiosity is hardly a reasonable motive. ……..This he can do, either by his own researches, or still more readily by the aid of the polite attendants.

Household Words - 21 February 1857 pp 190-192

15

16

Our Founder - Bennet Woodcroft

17

Southampton Buildings in 1799

18

19

20

21

Patent Office Library - 1902

22

23

24

St Pancras in 1799

25

26

27

An Alternative History ……..

And some things that didn’t happen…….

1944 - Southampton Buildings survives a near miss from a V1

1966 - Project to move NRLSI to the South Bank abandoned

1974 - Project to move NRLSI to Bloomsbury abandoned

c1985 - St Pancras Phases II and III abandoned

c1990- St Pancras Kings Library replaces the card catalogue hall

28

29

30

31

32

33

Science at the British Library – a historical background

Alan Edwin, D. & Day, A.E. Inside the British Library / Alan Day. London: London : Library Association, 1998. General Reference Collection YC.1998.b.4193.

Alan Edwin, D. & Day, A.E. The new British Library / Alan Day. London: London : Library Association Publishing, 1994. General Reference Collection 2719.e.2919.

Geoffrey, T. & Tyack, G. Sir James Pennethorne and the making of Victorian London / Geoffrey Tyack. Cambridge: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1992. General Reference Collection YC.1993.b.3917.

Hewish, J. 2000. Rooms near Chancery Lane : the Patent Office under the Commissioners, 1852-1883 / by John Hewish. London: London : British Library, 2000.

Richardson, A.E.S. 1984. Monumental classic architecture in Great Britain and Ireland / Albert E. Richardson. New York ; London: New York ; London : Norton, c1982.

St. John Wilson, C. 1998. The design and construction of the British Library. London: London : British Library, 1998.

Tyack, G. 1992. Sir James Pennethorne and the making of Victorian London / Geoffrey Tyack. Cambridge: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Records exported to www.myendnoteweb.com