The big themes that will guide us
between now and 2030
Access, engagement and inclusion
Ensuring that the services we offer, and the collection
we hold, are truly ‘for everyone’.
Modernising our library services
Investing in skills, processes, systems and capabilities
to deliver the quality of library services our users deserve.
Deepening our partnerships
Collaborating with libraries and memory institutions
of all kinds across the UK and around the world, to
achieve more than we ever could by ourselves.
Sustainability and resilience
Reducing our carbon impact and collaborating
with partners to create a more sustainable future.
New spaces, North and South
In Yorkshire and in London, delivering new, world-class
physical spaces designed to welcome future generations
of visitors and users.
Our values
• We put users at the heart of everything we do
• We listen, innovate and adapt to a changing world
• We treat everyone with respect and compassion
• We embrace equality, fairness and diversity
• We act with openness and honesty
• We collaborate to do more than we could by ourselves
Knowledge Matters
The British Library 2023–2030
Knowledge Matters
The British Library 2023–2030
Contents
2
Introduction
4
Adapting to a changing world
7
Our Purposes
8
Custodianship
12 Research
16 Business
20 Culture
24 Learning
28 International
32 Enabling the vision
Our mission
We make our
intellectual heritage
accessible to
everyone, for
research, inspiration
and enjoyment
A note on Reporting and Governance
The priorities in this document are aligned to our statutory duties as
set out in the British Library Act 1972, the Public Lending Right Act
1979 and the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, as amended by The
Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations 2013. Other
priorities are agreed through our framework document with DCMS
and the Chief Executive Officer as the Library’s Accounting Officer is
accountable to Parliament for the disbursement of our Grant in Aid.
The British Library Board will assess our performance quarterly and
we will publish an annual report on our progress.
Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030 1
2 Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030
Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030 3
This new strategic vision, Knowledge
Matters: the British Library 2023–2030,
is published as we celebrate 50 years of
operation as the UK’s national library. It’s
a moment to pause and look back with
admiration at what our staff and their
predecessors have achieved. It’s also a
reminder that we are a comparatively young
institution – still learning, and responding
to a changing world. The British Library was
founded as part of an extraordinary wave of
post-war innovation and institution-building,
and can be seen, half a century on, as one
the great cultural creations of the second
Elizabethan age.
This strategy shares many continuities with
its predecessor Living Knowledge. It holds
fast to the same mission, purposes and
values; it seeks to embed many of the
innovations made in recent years; and it
renews our commitment to a number of
transformative initiatives.
Some of these, which were little more than
glints in the eye when Living Knowledge was
published in 2015, are now on the brink of
fruition. The long-cherished renewal of our
Boston Spa site in Yorkshire, made urgent by
a collection that grows by 8km of shelving
each year, is finally under way. Our presence
in nearby Leeds and the wider region is
growing alongside it, as we work towards a
permanent new Library site in the city centre.
And we have gained planning permission to
turn our iconic London campus at St Pancras
into a major centre for science, with increased
local community access and new spaces for
our culture, learning, and business activities.
Introduction
In two significant ways, though, this is more
than just a second chapter.
The first relates to the word ‘everyone’ in
our mission. It’s a word that has taken on
an increased significance in the context
of the upheavals of the pandemic of 2020.
Questions of access and inclusion have come
more urgently to the fore, in relation to race,
social class, geography, gender and other
characteristics and experience – all of them
different kinds of ‘unfinished business’, as the
title of our 2020 exhibition on women’s rights
memorably put it. It’s a shift we recognised
in our response to the pandemic, Living
Knowledge For Everyone, and it’s a theme
that runs consistently through the pages
that follow.
It has also increased our determination
to transform our visibility in the North of
England, home to two-thirds of our collection
and a significant proportion of our staff.
Everyone who works at the Library knows
that we have proud roots in Yorkshire
reaching back to our foundation. We
want the whole world to know it too.
The second point of difference relates to
the idea of knowledge itself. In 2015 we
talked about ‘historic disruption’ in the
global information system, but we did not
predict the sheer scale of upheaval that was
imminent. The explosive growth of social
media has enabled knowledge to be shared
with unprecedented speed and reach, but has
also created fertile ground for disinformation
efforts that undermine trust in different
sources of knowledge, from journalism
to science.
In this unsettling world, the global ecosystem
of libraries, including ours, has a newly
important role to play. Long before the
internet, libraries were the original distributed
information network, resilient and quietly
powerful, connected not so much by
technology but by a shared mission and set
of values. Those values include a commitment
to support the practice of serious research
and learning for anyone who walks through
our door or uses our services: the methodical
process of identifying sources, verifying facts,
and building knowledge.
Knowledge matters. The title of our new
statement of vision reflects an awareness
that fundamental ideas such as these must
never be taken for granted, and need
reinterpretation with each generation.
It also reflects a sense of excitement and
determination about our role: these are
global challenges, and as one of the world’s
great libraries we are determined to play
our part.
Dame Carol Black, Chair
Sir Roly Keating, Chief Executive
Right: Architects’ impression of the Public Foyer
– part of the proposed new extension of our
St Pancras site. Rogers Stirk Harbour+ Partners.
Eight years ago we identified five trends
which looked set to transform the sectors
in which the British Library operates: a
revolution in the creation and exploitation of
data; a movement towards further openness
in research; growing economic interest in the
value of creativity and culture; an increased
understanding of the continuing need
for high-quality physical spaces alongside
digital services; and a mix of new risks and
opportunities for public libraries.
Today, in different ways and to different
degrees, all five have come to fruition. The
exploitation of large-scale data has become
commonplace, with huge societal benefits as
well as a new consciousness of risks around
privacy and control. Open access publication
has become a requirement of publicly-
funded research, although implementation
remains challenging; the creative economy
has continued to grow; the role of physical
space in a digital age has come to the fore
of debates about hybrid working. And the
public library sector, though still vulnerable to
shifts in funding, has taken on a new visibility
following the turmoil of the pandemic and
the energy crisis.
In reviewing the latest changes in and around
the sectors we work in, we have built on our
previous analysis to identify five significant
trends which have helped us to define our
new priorities for Knowledge Matters.
Taken together they paint a picture of a
world that appears to be notably less stable
and more prone to sudden, radical change
than in 2015.
Adapting to a changing world
• In technology, the acceleration originally
identified in 2010 in our report 2020
Vision has reached a tipping point beyond
which the infrastructure of our world will
be transformed. In particular, the uptake
of Artificial Intelligence is expected to
become mainstream for the first time.
AI innovations using statistical models to
analyse vast amounts of language and
data are changing the way people access
and use information. For organisations
such as ours, with a vast collection of
data under our stewardship, this transition
demands a further step-change in digital
transformation, modernising and improving
our services and systems to keep pace with
expectations among users of information
resources. It also opens doors to new kinds
of large-scale digital research based on free
public access to our wide range of datasets.
• Alongside these advances, we have seen
that falsified or distorted information can be
spread across the world more quickly than
ever before, sharpening divisions of opinion
and weakening the bonds that bring us
together. In this world, shaped by social
media, algorithms and artificial intelligence,
the traditional role of libraries in advancing
information literacy – in helping people of
all ages and backgrounds to understand
context, access other perspectives, and
critically evaluate sources as citizens and
not just consumers – has taken on new
relevance and urgency. Our scale and
visibility mean that we have a particular,
international-scale responsibility to foster
the enduring values of libraries within
an information landscape increasingly
characterised by over-acceleration,
superabundance, and intense competition
for engagement.
• Living Knowledge argued that the value of
physical spaces and experiences appeared
to be growing, not diminishing, as people’s
lives became more screen-based. Since
then, this insight has been bolstered by a
greater understanding of the importance
of place-making: investing in the quality
of the real places where people live and
work, and which are often deep sources
for personal meaning and pride. Our own
understanding of this has been informed
by our growing programme of work with
local people and communities in London
and Yorkshire, and by the shared insight
of our Living Knowledge Network (LKN),
founded in partnership with the National
Libraries of Scotland and Wales and made
up of over 30 library partners across the
UK, as well as our Business & IP Centre
National Network which reaches over 100
places across the country. These ideas are
also shaping our approach to designing our
major development projects as inclusive,
welcoming places – and in particular to
ensure that the investment in our site at
Boston Spa is amplified by a commitment
to reach and serve the communities of
Leeds and the wider region.
Left: Breaking the News exhibition in St Pancras. Photo by Justine Trickett.
4 Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030
Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030 5
Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030 7
• The worldwide community of national
libraries has expanded significantly over
the 50 years of our existence, and we
are active participants in it – sharing
connections of knowledge and scholarship
across boundaries, regardless of differences
of culture, faith or political system. The
emerging era of geopolitical instability
and increased fragility in international
relations has begun to test these principles
to the limit, not least where situations of
war or conflict have brutally interrupted
the normal dialogue between national
libraries. There are no easy responses to
this kind of historic shift in global affairs,
and the crises of recent years have taught
us to be cautious and realistic in the face
of an unpredictable future. But our guiding
principle remains a presumption towards
openness, accuracy and the maintenance,
wherever possible, of cultural dialogue,
exchange and collaboration.
• All of these changes are taking place
against a backdrop of profound and
damaging changes in the Earth’s climate
and its ability to support bio-diverse
ecosystems. It is widely recognised that the
scale of change ahead amounts to a planet-
wide emergency. Our most vital response
is, of course, to tackle the challenge of
sustainability in our own organisation: to
adapt our behaviour, systems and buildings
in ways that radically reduce our carbon
emissions. But we also want to help address
the climate crisis in other ways: to be a
trustworthy, engaging and accessible source
of information for our communities; to
catalyse positive action across the library
sector; to provide the businesses we
support with the knowledge they need to
go green; and to support climate science
through our expertise and collection.
Our purposes
Custodianship
We build, curate and preserve
the UK’s national collection of
published, written and digital
content
Research
We support and stimulate
research of all kinds
Business
We help businesses to innovate
and grow
Culture
We engage everyone with
memorable cultural experiences
Learning
We inspire young people and
learners of all ages
International
We work with partners around
the world to advance knowledge
and mutual understanding
Our ability to meet these challenges will
depend, of course, on the level of resourcing
we are able to secure in a period which is
likely to be challenging for public finances
and commercial and philanthropic income.
We do not underestimate this, but we are
confident in the case we can make to all the
partners and supporters who have helped the
Library deliver its achievements over the past
half century – including, most vitally,
the public we serve.
In the sections that follow we will explore,
purpose by purpose, how the Library will
respond to this changing world, and the
priorities we are committing to between now
and the end of the decade. Underpinning all
of them, and driven by the trends identified
above, are five recurrent themes:
Access, engagement and inclusion
Ensuring that the services we offer, and the
collection we hold, are truly ‘for everyone’.
Modernising our library services
Investing in skills, processes, systems and
capabilities to deliver the quality of library
services our users deserve.
Deepening our partnerships
Collaborating with libraries and memory
institutions of all kinds across the UK and
around the world, to achieve more than
we ever could by ourselves.
Sustainability and resilience
Reducing our carbon impact and
collaborating with partners to create
a more sustainable future.
New spaces, North and South
In Yorkshire and in London, delivering
new, world-class physical spaces designed
to welcome future generations of visitors
and users.
Photo by Marcin Nowak
6 Knowledge Matters: the British Library 2023 – 2030