This page gives an overview of the British Library collection of company annual reports. It describes our collaboration with other libraries and provides advice on how to access reports held by the British Library and our SCoRe partner institutions. It also details current work to develop the collection.
Collection overview
The British Library’s Business and Intellectual Property Centre (BIPC) reading room contains selected company annual reports for the last four years from major UK companies on the open shelves, plus some international reports. Older reports are held in storage and have to be ordered in advance, either using Explore the British Library which features limited older reports, or by asking reading room staff to order up reports held by the BL and listed on the SCoRe website.
The reports cannot be borrowed, they have to be used in the BL’s reading rooms. We do not currently collect electronic company annual reports, but this is something we would like to develop in future.
Finding aids
SCoRe database SCoRe (Search Company Reports) is a catalogue of print company reports held in the British Library and a selection of other UK libraries. It includes details on how to access print reports held at institutions which are members of SCoRe. It does not link through to full-text reports. British Library reports cannot be ordered electronically through SCoRe; to obtain items from storage you will need to speak to a member of staff.
Explore the British Library. Some annual reports, particularly for older UK companies, as well as accompanying or background material, have to be ordered through Explore the British Library.
BIPC Enquiry Team
For more help, contact the Enquiry team at bipc@bl.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7412 7454
Current activities
Focus groups with management and business researchers held in 2007 showed that a consolidated and accessible collection of UK company annual reports would be a valuable resource for researchers in academia, government, business and elsewhere.
We are developing the company reports collection to offer a better service and a more coherent print collection which is relevant to researchers. The updated collection will focus on current FTSE100 and FTSE250 companies of UK relevance plus companies of particular national or topical relevance. We are consulting our SCoRe partners to ensure that the British Library collection complements collections available at other SCoRe member libraries.
Annual reports are increasingly published online rather than in print. Company websites often contain only the most recent reports and previous years’ reports are not preserved. This is an issue which we will be seeking to address as part of our work on the collection.
