News from the British Library

Citation

(2002), "News from the British Library", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 30 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2002.12230dab.002

News from the British Library

Z-compliant catalogue

The British Library has launched its new BLPCZ service, which provides Z39.50 compliant access to its public catalogue. The service allows quick and easy access to bibliographic records from the catalogues of the main British Library collections – already available online at www.blpc.bl.uk. In addition to this, the new feature will allow users with suitable retrieval software to download and make use of the library's bibliographic citations for their own personal research purposes. This should prove of particular use to researchers and students compiling bibliographies for monographs, research reports or theses. The public catalogue is now also available via the Consortium of University and Research Libraries (CURL) database.

Annual report, 2001/2002

Case studies throughout the report illustrate the library's role in promoting knowledge transfer from higher education through to business and industry, and supporting research in science, technology, medicine and culture and aiding the commercialisation of new discoveries.

Single copies of The Annual Report are available to journalists from Press and Public Relations, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB. The report is also available from the Stationery Office (mail, telephone and fax orders only), PO Box 29, Norwich NR3 1GN. Tel: +44 (0)870 600 5522; Fax: +44 (0)870 600 5533. Online through the Stationery Office Web site: www.tso.co.uk/bookshop. It is also available from the Stationery Office bookshops and good booksellers, priced £14.00, ISBN 0 10 291 684 5 (and online at: www.bl.uk

Patent Express

Patent Express, the British Library's patent delivery service, ceased operation on 5 June. Patent Express was set up in the 1980s to provide a specialist remote patent copying service based on the British Library's collection of patents, consisting of over 42 million patents from 45 patenting authorities.

Provision of the service no longer covers its operating costs. The decision to close Patent Express was taken both on economic grounds and to reflect the change in patterns of use, meaning that the vast majority of patents are available from other sources, in many cases electronically. The library investigated alternative methods of providing the service, such as partnership agreements. Unfortunately, none of these would have enabled it to offer a service which would cover operating costs. The British Library will continue to offer access to the patent collections and a copying service to personal users through its reading rooms at St Pancras.

Union Catalogue of Books (UCB)

Probably the largest card catalogue remaining in the world is finally being put online. Certainly it is the most useful card catalogue for ILL librarians, as all items are available for loan via the British Library at Boston Spa. The first tranche of 450,000 records, which represent the pre-1950 records, have been loaded and are available on the British Library Public Catalogue. Hopefully, 2003 will see the remaining 1 million books added. So whether you are interested in developments in the German chemical industry in the 1920s or rural nostalgia in the UK, then this is the catalogue to search and obtain the relevant books.