AV Your title in British Library comes with huge responsibility. What would you say is your biggest challenge?

RB Amid the ongoing digital revolution, the biggest challenge is moving towards “digital everything”. British Library has a rich tradition of providing fantastic physical material for decades to a diverse group of professionals: academics, historians, local researchers and corporate information professionals, among others. Staying relevant to them in Web 2.0 times and maintaining the level of our service by re-inventing information provision is a challenging task.

The British Library is one of the world’s greatest research libraries, and our strategies must reflect the features of the rapidly evolving research and information landscape. We must develop our existing strengths and seize new opportunities.

We are also working at migrating our content into such digital formats as would be relevant, searchable and accessible in the long run – even 200 years down the road.

We have already made a good start: we have created a digital library system that can hold all our digital assets.

AV While you have always been a part of the information industry, this is your first experience within a library environment. How do the information management strategies of libraries differ from those of corporate content providers?

RB The vision, ambition and going-digital policies of professionals within the library are similar to those seen in the business information players of the industry, such as Thomson Financial, LexisNexis and Reed Elsevier – where I have worked – their approach is all the same. However, the versatility of audience and the range of data is a big difference I have experienced in the last seven years of my role at the British Library.

I am responsible for the scientific, technical and medical [STM] content here and, contrary to perception, STM professionals are capitalising on the latest technologies to access information. And so the British Library, along with its partners, is running UK PubMed Central [UKPMC], similar to the US model. It provides free access to an online digital archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences to the biomedical research community.

AV What is your next e-strategy plan for the library?

RB My most important ambition is to integrate information products into professionals’ workflow. Gone are the days when professionals would separate their research activity, and then following data collection, use the information in their work later. Today’s professionals times know and expect research material to be available to them as they begin their work. Our vision at British Library is to integrate content and make information available to them when they need it, where they need it.

AV You are the chair of the world’s most important open access scientific resource, Worldwidescience.org. What is this project?

RB True, it is the world’s most important resource, where the global science community can share knowledge. It enables researchers to search over 50 national databases simultaneously and freely access high quality, authoritative information on cutting-edge scientific research. It makes available more than 360 million pages of information covering energy, medicine, agriculture and the environment, and continues to expand.

The growth of the resource since its launch in 2007 has been absolutely phenomenal. Rapidly evolving from 10 countries initially to 56, it has demonstrated a real international willingness to commit to a long-term vision of accelerating scientific discovery through the innovative use of federated searching and other technologies. Only through international co-operation can the vast quantities of geographically dispersed scientific and technological information be utilised by the world’s scientists.

AV How did you get involved in

the project?

RB It is an initiative by the Department of Energy in the US. They phoned me asking if I would be interested in being a part of the project. We at the British Library were excited about the prospects of providing information and data assets of governments across 50 different countries in a single, federated searchable platform that is online and more importantly free.

In September, the UK made its first major independent contribution of research data to the project with the upload of the Environment Research Funders’ Forum research database which contains information from about 20,000 publicly funded environmental research projects and programmes since 2005.

As a chair of this ambitious project, bringing people together, sharing ideas, securing government funds and making it work has been a great experience. It is an ongoing project where we convene every six months to discuss the next step forward, and now we are planning to implement an automated language translation tool.

Because the content comes from all over the world, such a translation application will help professionals to conduct searches and translate data in their native languages.

It has been 18 months and we have had global feedback from professionals who have benefited greatly from this project, although I am still waiting to hear feedback from any information professionals specifically in the UK.

AV Digitising physical content and investing in IT infrastructure and collaborative tools cost money. Is government providing adequate funds to help you attain these objectives?

RB Keeping content updated is certainly costing us a lot of money and we are not getting additional cash or financial support in realising all our digital ambitions. But I am not complaining about the lack of money at all.

We understand that times are tough and that is why now it is more important than ever to be innovative, to weigh the alternatives and to embark on digital projects with available funds. Contrary to public expectation, the volume of physical information material at British Library is increasing at a vast

rate and there is still demand for traditional information sources. Within our existing financial resources, we are making an attempt to satisfy the audience of traditional sources and simultaneously support the digital activity.

In addition, we are seeing a lot of support from IT infrastructure suppliers such as Microsoft SharePoint in our digital endeavours.

AV What is your message to libraries and information professionals?

RB Become a lot more user-focused and stay in tune with your audience: their needs, their expectations and their information accessing habits. Just like other industries, even libraries and information solution providers must understand the people they are trying to serve. Be innovative and work towards adjusting to their demands.

At the British Library, we are

trying to focus on the digital roadmap as well as being competitive in providing physical content if there is a need for it.

AV Everyone is talking about it, so what do you think of Google Books?

RB Building digital archives and making more information accessible to users is extremely beneficial and I feel positive that Google has embarked on a visionary book digitisation process. But that said, it is also worrying to see one large corporate gaining a monopoly to become world’s largest digital library. So it is important that we in Europe undertake similar projects to preserve the cultural heritage of the EU collectively.

AV What are you currently working on?

RB We are planning to launch the Digital Research Centre Exhibition soon, with the aim of helping our customers leverage the latest research technologies for more productivity, efficiency and accuracy in their work. It is part of longer-term strategy for the British Library, seeking to ensure that its potential contribution to research and scholarly enterprise remains vibrant, innovative and relevant for new generations.

The centre is developed with a range of strategic partners in the content, technology, research and education, and commercial sectors. It is a world-class digital research environment offering unrivalled depth of content, expertise and technology.

As I said, the future is all about collaboration.