001120 British Library Non User Research

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. We acquire, preserve and give access to over 150 million items, ranging from historical manuscripts, books, journals and maps to patents, sound recordings, photographs and the latest digital media. To use our materials, researchers need to register as a Reader. At present, we have c.109.3K Registered Readers, but this has declined by -6.1% since 2015/16 and by -6.3% since 2008/9. This slow fall off in the numbers of researchers who are using us is driving us to commission research to investigate why we are not attracting as many researchers as previously. We need to un…