This month (February), Searcher magazine, a sister publication to ONLINE features an article by Miriam Drake on the British Library, based upon an interview Mimi did with BL CEO Lynne Brindley. It’s a very positive, upbeat article. Unfortunately, it was written before budget problems arose to plague the library.

The proposed 7% cut to its 100 million pound annual budget could result in the library’s charging fees to use its reading rooms, cut the hours it’s open by about a third, close all public exhibitions, cease offering school learning programs, and permanently reduce its collection by 15%. This despite the fact that since 2001, BL has reduced its staff by 15% and cut costs to the tune of about 40 million pounds. Commentary in the British press can be found here, here, and here.

Lots of people are upset. Joanna Bryant, a student at Loughborough University has started a petition to send to the UK government. Note that you must be a British citizen or resident to sign it. I’m very impressed that it already has over 700 signatures. If you’re not eligible to sign the petition (and it’s obvious that governments react more to input from those whose tax money they collect than to that from someone not helping to fund a service), you can still contribute to the effort to stop these draconian cuts. Email the library’s support forum (support_forum@bl.uk) with your name, contact number, and message.

Meanwhile, the library is very busy with incredibly exciting and innovative projects. It launched a new reprints service, is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy to create a global science gateway, issued two new wildlife CDs complete with sound, and worked with Microsoft to reunite two Leonardo da Vinci notebooks (Codex Arundel and Codex Leicester) in a Turning the Pages 2.0 for Windows Vista.

Some are blaming the monetary shortfall on Olympic spending, since the summer Olympics will be in London in 2010. My understanding, having been up close and personal with the winter Olympics in 2002, is that culture is an important component of the Games. To shortchange the British Library, which is an enormous cultural asset, undermines the spirit of the modern Games.