BL under pressure for user group

The British Library (BL) has given the idea of an independent users’ forum the cold shoulder.

Author and Freedom of Information Act (FoI) campaigner, Heather Brooke, approached the BL to place an advertisement for a users’ forum in the BL’s newsletter, but was denied the opportunity.

Brooke approached BL service improvement manager, Jenny Brace, to place an ad in the Readers Bulletin asking library users to sign up for a users’ group.

In an email exchange seen by IWR, Brace said: “We could neither sanction the establishment of the independent user forum that you envisage, nor would we be prepared to recognise such an ‘un-official body’.”

“It harks back to the anti-union style of large corporations,” Brooke said. She believes users of the BL deserve an independent forum as there has been an increase in reading room regulations, with security guards patrolling the aisles and confiscating pens. “They are treating people like naughty school kids and there is a total lack of respect.”

In a statement, the BL said: “We have no plans at this point, not least while we are in the process of making permanent high level appointments in our Operations and Services directorate, to establish a user forum.”

Brooke already has 20 patrons signed up and told IWR she hasn’t given up on the idea. A spokesperson for the BL said they respected Brooke as an investigative journalist and hoped she would agree that the BL has always entered into open and frank discussion with her on her campaigns.

Brooke crossed swords with the BL last spring over its wi-fi service, a BL revenue generator, but Brooke argued that wi-fi access should be free at the national library.

Read the latest entry in Brooke's online blog, Your Right to Know .

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