Statistics

Seats available for users at 31 March 2008 1	Reader desks	2Other provision
Humanities Floor 1 and 2 Reading Rooms	436	85
Rare Books and Music Reading Room	293	74
Maps Reading Room	49	20
Asian & African Studies Reading Room (formerly known as Oriental and India Office Reading Room)	73	52
Manuscripts Reading Room	72	24
Philatelic Collections	1	0
Science Reading Rooms	128	51
Business and IP Centre	32	77
Social Sciences Reading Room	50	27
Newspapers (Colindale)	77	69
Boston Spa Reading Room	76	18
TOTAL	1,287	497

Notes

¹ This figure does not include temporary seats that were made available to Readers during the Easter 2008 busy period.

² This includes seats provided at the British Library Integrated Catalogue screens, electronic database terminals, microform readers and carrels (the individual study booths in the Reading Rooms).

Records in British Library catalogues and databases at 31 March 2008	2007/08	2006/07
British Library Integrated Catalogue 1, 2	12,243,857	11,857,089
Access to archives 2, 3	593,338	593,338
Asia, Pacific & Africa Collections – Japanese and Chinese 2, 4	58,923	55,414
Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED)	219,959	208,372
British National Bibliography (BNB)	2,681,836	2,580,606
Sound Archive Catalogue 2	3,102,434	3,076,215
English Short Title Catalogue 2	473,591	469,268
Incunable Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) 2	29,813	29,764
Electronic table of contents 2, 5	32,787,442	30,264,915
International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSN) UK Centre	94,202	90,461
Manuscripts 2	809,722	801,091
Newspapers 2	56,049	53,198
Register of Preservation Surrogates	215,095	213,794
TOTAL	53,366,261	50,293,525

Notes

¹Number of unique records. A project to remove any duplication is ongoing.

²Available from the Library’s website.

³Conversion of printed catalogues to electronic versions for inclusion on the Access to Archives website hosted by the National Archives, was completed in 2006/07 and therefore this figure has remained the same in 2007/08. A new system is currently being developed to include new catalogues online via the Library’s website.

⁴All other Asia, Pacific and Africa Collection material, except for Japanese and Chinese material, is included in the British Library Integrated Catalogue.

⁵A database listing articles and conference papers by title, derived from the top 20,000 research journals. The database is available through British Library Direct and to higher education through zetoc.mimas.ac.uk.

⁶The total does not represent the number of unique records. There is significant overlap between some files e.g. British National Bibliography and British Library Integrated Catalogue.

Collection Holdings at 31 March 2008	2007/08	2006/07
Monographs 1	13,706,861	13,758,905
Serial titles (all) 2	828,928	879,320
Newspaper titles (all) 3	-	56,335
Manuscripts (single and volumes)	341,949	327,560
India Office records 4	452,150	392,013
Philatelic items	8,261,791	8,261,099
Cartographic items	4,335,542	4,330,660
Music scores	1,601,330	1,597,304
Sound discs	1,430,899	1,399,027
Sound tape items	243,768	242,227
Videos	30,747	29,200
Prints and drawings	33,041	32,779
Photographs	289,891	277,662
Patent specifications	62,508,920	60,602,725
Reports in microform	10,288,915	10,257,901
Theses	164,295	160,467
TOTAL	104,519,027	102,605,184

Notes

¹ The figure for monographs is based on the number of records in the relevant catalogues. This figure includes an estimate of items covered by card catalogues. In 2007/08 the Library’s Union Catalogue of Books card catalogue was successfully merged into the British Library Integrated Catalogue. This process allowed the elimination of a significant amount of duplicated content and accounts for the reduced reporting of monograph holdings.

² The figure for serials titles is based on the number of records in the relevant catalogues. Changes of title are therefore counted as separate titles. This figure includes an estimate of items covered by card catalogues. A significant project has been undertaken to de-duplicate serial holdings. This rationalised database more accurately reflects the number of unique titles held.

³ Newspapers have been migrated into Aleph in 2007/08 and are now included within the serial titles total.

⁴ The archives of the India Office (1858–1947) and its predecessors, including the East India Company (1600–1858).

Use of www.bl.uk	2007/08	2006/07
Unique hosts served 1	6,060,362	4,973,782
Successful requests for pages 2	69,788,291	60,938,371

Notes

¹Unique hosts served is the best approximation available to the number of individual users of the website.

² The number of pages of all types viewed on the website. Every landing on every page is counted in this figure.

Kilometres of shelving and percentage occupied	2007/08	2006/07
Working capacity: linear km 1, 2	655.0	654.5
Extent of collection: linear km	641.4	630.2
Percentage occupied 3	97.92%	96.27%

Notes

¹ Working capacity represents the linear length of the solid stock, plus the associated growth spaces without which the collection could not be used and added to effectively.

² During 2007/08 an additional 0.5 linear kms of shelving was installed bringing the working capacity to 655 linear kms.

³ The Library’s new high-density store at Boston Spa will be completed in 2008/09 and will provide an additional 260 linear kms of storage.

Preservation funding	2007/08	2006/07
	£000	£000
Grant in Aid	6,094	6,106
Donations/external funds 1	45	583
Sales income	251	242
TOTAL	6,390	6,931

Items preserved	2007/08	2006/07
Conservation and/or rebinding 2	5,460	3,538
New binding 2	36,330	49,650
Minor repairs 3	7,845	2,029
Boxing/other work	9,187	10,669
Preservation microfilming 4	18,042	15,481
TOTAL	76,864	81,367

Preservation microfilming 5	2007/08	2006/07
Newspapers: frames of film	18,702,845	15,653,359
Books, periodicals, record volumes, manuscripts: frames of film	1,367,790	1,568,833
TOTAL	20,070,635	17,222,192

Notes

¹ There have been no significant external funds received for preservation in 2007/08 compared to previous years when large sums of money were received for the Codex Sinaiticus and from the Mellon Foundation.

² Fluctuations in figures are due to the normal variations which occur annually when treating a wide range of non-standard items with a varying resource.

³ Minor repairs figures have risen due to an increase in the funding of this work in 2007/08 at Boston Spa.

⁴ This figure is the approximate number of volumes equivalent to the frames shown under the heading ‘preservation microfilming’.

⁵ One frame equates to one camera exposure. These generally represent either a single or double page of a monograph, newspaper or periodical. For most programmes, a negative, positive and duplicate are taken of each page. Consequently the number of frames shown does not represent the number of pages for which surrogate copies have been made.