British Library delivers an innovative online annual report
Tag: Education Print article: Email article: This was published: 31 Jul 2008 - 06:30 am
The British Library’s annual report for 2007/08 has just gone live and it's a very different kind of experience from previous years, at www.bl.uk/knowledge.
It features a best-selling novelist, a nanotechnology expert, a nit and head lice ‘assassin’ and a South African sound archivist, all talking about how the Library’s resources have supported their work in the past year.
The site uses video and animation to engage people, but then offers lots more in the way of linked resources – including audio of wolves howling and Zulu street guitar music. The idea has been to give people a chance to actually interact with our collections rather than simply reeling off a list of ‘what we’ve done this year’ – although that kind of information is also available.
The online Report features video clips of the Library’s users talking about how we have inspired and supported them. It also offers behind-the-scenes insights into how the expertise of our staff underpins the success of our users, along with links to related resources and examples of collection items such as historic maps and sound recordings of oral history and wildlife.
Stef Penney’s novel, ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ won the Costa Book Prize 2006 and went on to become one of the best-selling UK fiction titles of 2007. In one of the featured videos, Stef reveals how she used the Library’s Reading Rooms at St Pancras to research life in the backwoods in 19th century Canada:
“When I started I really didn’t know what the story was going to be, but I soon found a wealth of material in the Canadian collections. The Library gives you an amazing freedom to develop ideas in an open-ended and organic way… …there are no time constraints and I found books that I just wouldn’t have found anywhere else. Without that, I couldn’t have written my book.”
Every webpage gives users the opportunity to offer feedback or respond to a poll, and animated charts and video presentations by the Chairman and Chief Executive offer an overview of how the Library has performed this year. Achievements detailed in the British Library Annual Report 2007/08 include:
• 200,000 visitors for Sacred: Discover what we share, our most successful exhibition ever
• 93% satisfaction rate for users of the Reading Rooms
• More than six million individual users of the British Library website www.bl.uk
• £18,260,000 of efficiency savings.
The Chief Executive of the British Library, Dame Lynne Brindley, said: “The past year has been one of challenge and achievement for the British Library and, as always, we have focused our energies on meeting, and where possible exceeding, the high standards rightly expected of this world-class institution. I am really confident in our continuing ability to deliver an unrivalled service to our users, investing in innovation to ensure long-term success.”
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