Everything Available

Composite photograph of a laptop with pages of a book.

Everything Available will better enable users to find, access and use information from all over the world, whilst supporting other organisations in managing and sharing their own collections.

Published date:

What we will do


Everything Available will modernise how the British Library supports researchers of all kinds – from academics and students across all disciplines, to businesses, citizen researchers, the third sector, government and freelancers. To this end we are commissioning a programme of work to review the services we provide and optimise them where possible, whilst developing a range of new offerings.

Why are we doing this?

The world of research is changing. New policy environments, funding pressures and technologies are dramatically altering researchers’ needs and expectations. 
The Open Science model, in particular Open Access, requires new global infrastructures for sharing and preserving knowledge. Mobile technologies and remote access have changed the way researchers and students are using physical library spaces, while text and data analytics open up new ways of engaging with digital content.

Technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence will have a massive impact on how knowledge organisations work and how society overall engages with information. 

To fulfil our vision for the British Library to be the most open, creative and innovative institution of its kind we need not just to react to and embrace this change, but take a lead in shaping the future knowledge environment in a way that benefits all. The Everything Available portfolio is designed to deliver this vision.

How we'll do it

Everything Available is broken down into three work streams designed to respond to the ways researchers interact with us:

  1. ‘Find’ will improve how researchers can discover and access what they are looking for, both from within and outside our collections. We are looking at initiatives including improving our search and discovery systems and how we can help researchers to find content we do not hold. In particular, we are working to develop remote access solutions to ensure the whole country can benefit from the British Library. 
  2. ‘Use’ will develop new tools to support researchers engaging with our content. Initially this will include developing a ‘digitisation on demand’ service and improving our main viewer to support a greater range of researchers. We are looking to pilot services that will support researchers to apply big data techniques to our collections and improve how they link to the collections of other institutions.
  3. ‘Publish’ will see the Library support other organisations by providing digital infrastructure to manage and share their collections and research. We will create a home for material that is otherwise at risk of being lost, preserving it to the same standards we apply to our own collections, and ensure that it can easily be found, interrogated and used.

If you would like to contact us regarding Everything Available, please email Research-Services-Dept@bl.uk.