Are you a librarian or publisher? Take advantage of our bibliographic services to help your organisation give your customers exactly what they want.

Among our metadata services is the British National Bibliography, the most comprehensive record of UK publications from 1950 to the present. You can download weekly updates or monthly files and more for your catalogue, collection development or research.

Use our identifier services to ensure your UK organisation or serial publication is identifiable according to international standards such as ISIL and ISSN.

You can also attend our training for cataloguers. With our courses, you'll be equipped to get the most out of current bibliographic standards. Read our collection metadata strategy and find out how we're going to maintain quality and improve services.

Find out more

Identifier services

We can provide identifiers for your organisation, publications and contributors.

Metadata services

Explore a range of services for libraries, publishers, researchers and the cultural heritage sector.

Strategy and bibliographic standards

Find out what standards we use and why our collection metadata is an important asset.

Training courses for cataloguers

Develop your cataloguing skills with our short courses.

Help

Get a MARC organisation code

Make sure your library or related institution is identifiable in the bibliographic environment.

Get an ISIL for your library

We assign International Standard Identifiers to libraries and related organisations in the UK.

Get an ISBN or ISSN for your publication

These identifiers are used for distributing, describing and selling publications

Get MARC 21 data

Our free service gives you catalogue or British National Bibliography data.

Case studies

……the idea of importing free records seemed almost magical...…

The Goldsmiths’ Company Library is using our free MARC 21 (Z39.50) service to support the delivery of their Online Public Access Catalogue.

…...to draw on the expertise of British Library trainers has been invaluable...…

Dunia collaborated with the British Library to deliver continuing professional development courses.

…...there was an obvious starting point - the archives of the British Library...…

Book publisher Hatchette UK used our metadata to produce a graphic of its long and complex history.