British Library wi-fi access under fire

BL reveals commercial details of wi-fi service provision at St Pancras after campaigning author uses FoI Act

Wireless internet access at the British Library (BL) has come under fire after details of the service's provision emerged using the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

Author and library user Heather Brooke has obtained the service agreement documents for wi-fi access at the BL, and is campaigning for costs to be slashed.

Brooke is unhappy that wireless internet access at the St Pancras site is supplied by a private company and expensive to use. "For them to grant a monopoly to a private company is wrong," she said in an interview with IWR. "It is like an entry fee. A library is a free public resource, but if you want to access electronic resources at the library you are forced to pay."

Brooke, who recently published the FoI guide Your Right to Know, hopes to start a debate on the public being charged for wi-fi access to public resources. BL charges £4.50 for an hour's usage, while calls to a helpdesk cost 50p per minute.

At its launch last November, the British Library's PayGo service was depicted as a wi-fi trailblazer. The service is supplied by Building Zones, a wireless internet consultancy, which contracts out service provision to internet service provider, The Cloud.

In a letter to Brooke, John de Lucy, head of estates at BL, said that Building Zone approached the BL with the "commercial proposition" for wi-fi supply for "BL users at no cost to the BL".

De Lucy told IWR that wi-fi provision is a revenue generator for the library, a fact that "appalled" Brooke who noted that wi-fi access at the New York Public Library is free.

"The BL does not charge to access books or catalogues, nor should it. It is paid for with public money and is a public resource. So why is it that just because information is accessed in electronic format, the BL has decided that a private company should be allowed to charge users whatever it likes?"

John de Lucy defended the current wi-fi policy: "Demand has been high," he said. "People want to get the information using their own laptops at the desk they are at."