This section is split into two parts:
- Tell me about Account types
- Tell me about Payment options
Account types
You do not have to open an account to order items. Visit British Library Direct to search 20,000 journals and pay for all your purchases with a debit or credit card. However if you are a regular user, we recommend opening an account. There are 3 options:
- Deposit Account – if you would like to pay in advance
- Billing Account – if you would like us to bill you each month
- Parent/satellite account – if you want to control the purchases of multiple users
Deposit accounts
With a deposit account, you pay in advance to keep your account in credit. Whenever a request is processed, we will deduct the appropriate amount from your account. Every month you will receive an itemised statement along with a tax invoice that summarises your purchases and a proforma invoice when you need to top up your account.
Billing accounts
A billing account allows you to pay for services you have already received. We will send you an itemised statement, listing all transactions and charges, and an invoice for all your processed requests each month.
Please note our payment terms are 30 days from the date of the invoice.
Parent/satellite accounts
Parent/satellite accounts are useful for organisations that have more than one site but prefer to keep control of their finances in one place. Every month we will send you a bill that summarises all purchases by all users of the account.
For more information on your account options, please call our Customer Services team on +44 (0)1937 546060 or send an e-mail to customer-services@bl.uk.
Payments
There are two ways to pay:
- Debit/credit card
- Charge to an account
Debit/Credit card
You don’t have to open an account to purchase items from our collection. Using a debit or credit card is the quickest and easiest way to process your order and has become the most popular method. If you would like to pay by debit/credit card, you have two options:
- If you need to search our collections for an article – visit British Library Direct to search 20,000 of our most popular journals, add one of more articles to your basket, then check out and pay within a few seconds.
- If you know which article you want – use our British Library Direct order form which allows you to submit bibliographic details for an article and pay for it via a secure form.
Charge to an account
If you would like to charge all of your purchases to an account, please read the accounts section above for more details.
Should you wish to make payment for account charges by credit or debit card we can only accept credit/debit card details by phone. Please contact Customer Services Accounts on +44 (0)1937 546655 with your credit card information and details of the invoice you wish to pay.
