BRITISH LIBRARY RESEARCH AND INNOVATION REPORT 3

The Impact of Digital Resources on British Library Reading Rooms

3. WHAT OTHER FACTORS MIGHT AFFECT READING ROOMS?

Before considering digital resources, it is worth pointing out that many other factors may affect the demand for reading room space.

Readers come from different walks of life, from different places. For example:

• some 40% of SRIS readers are academics, the rest mostly being from commerce and the public sector [2];
• some 40% of readers at the Manuscripts Students’ reading room come from overseas [3], 60% of them coming from North America.

It is easy to imagine many demographic and other factors which can affect the demand for reading room space. By way of illustration:

• reductions in university library acquisitions (due, for example, to budget cuts) may lead to academic readers needing to rely more heavily on the British Library;
• increases or decreases in student numbers would, eventually, be reflected in corresponding changes in demand on reading room space;
• relaxations in visa requirements, or increases in funds made available to students, in any one of several countries could increase the numbers of foreign students seeking access to reading rooms;
• an upturn in the economy could lead to greater industrial R&D activity, which could lead to greater use of the Patents collection by commercial users and patent agents;
• the improved reading environments in the St Pancras building may attract more readers, or may encourage some readers to stay longer.

It is not possible to determine the size of these potential effects without detailed study. However, it is easy to imagine that the these effects may exceed effects due to digital resources, at least in some cases; by way of illustration, the current forecasts predict a 10% - 19% increase in demand over the next five years, before any change attributable to digital resources. This context is proposed as background to consideration of the effects of digital resources.

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Converted to HTML by Isobel Stark of UKOLN, August 1996