Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 June 2016
Originally founded as the library of the British Museum, the British Library has since 1973 been the United Kingdom’s national library, and has increasingly played a leadership role in co-operation and the co-ordination of library services in this country. Responses to its 1998 Strategic Review emphasised the importance of the Library’s collections in underpinning its services to support scholarship and research. But the Library is no longer able to collect as extensively as in its early years. As part of the new partnership programme intended to optimise national provision the Library is keen to work closely with ARLIS/UK & Ireland, and with the institutions with collections of national importance in the visual arts, to identify research needs and patterns of use and to establish ways of collecting, preserving and providing access to material to meet those needs.
Paper presented to the ARLIS/UK & Ireland conference Taking stock: collection development into the 21st century, University of Warwick, 22nd July 1999.