It has been a pretty good week for the British Library (BL) having just won a renewed level of funding from the Department for Culture Media and Sport. The BL will receive a rise of 2.7% keeping it in line with inflation. There were fears originally that the Government’s Public Sector Spending Review may entail a reduction of funds to the library. Cuts would have seriously affected the level of service and provision the library would be able to offer. It’s good to hear that access to the reading rooms remains free, along with a variety of other services.
I imagine there has been a collective sigh of relief over at the nation’s world class library, not least from BL Chief Executive Lynne Brindley. The library’s CEO has previously said cuts would mean she would end up running “a second rate organisation”. Yet there is still the issue of ensuring the BL’s annual capital settlement remains adequate to continue with the BL’s massive national newspaper digitisation project.
Brindley also appears in an interview in this month’s Harvard Business Review. The esteemed title asks what lessons she has learnt during her tenure at the library so far, “I learned the importance of fitting communications to what the organisation wants and needs – otherwise you don’t get the buy-in” she says.
So far it’s a good thing she got the purse-string holders to buy-into her vision, let’s see if Brindley and the library’s supporters can get the continued funding they need.
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