Fury at British Library plan to charge for reading rooms

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Plans by the British Library to charge researchers for admission to the reading rooms has provoked a furious reaction from leading writers.

The institution, which holds the Magna Carta and Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, warns it will have to take the unprecedented step if the Treasury slashes its £100 million budget in this year's spending round.

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Officials said that as well as bringing in admission charges, they would be forced to close public exhibitions and schools learning programmes.

But historians and writers criticised the cuts, which are predicted to be seven per cent of the library's budget.

Writer and columnist AN Wilson, a regular user of the library, told the Standard: "I'm astounded by this. It's outrageous because the British Library is our national library and technically anybody should be able to use it for free.

"The Department of Culture should not cut its budget, especially when the sum we are talking about is a tiny proportion of what it is spending on the Olympic Games."

Award-winning author Margaret Drabble said: "It would be a very great mistake and tragic to make cuts. It is a great national institution and it is used by scholars all over the world."

Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Avebury has already complained to Chancellor Gordon Brown about the cuts.

He said: "It is difficult to fathom the mind of a Government that sets out to wreck a world-class public institution as you would if the British Library is forced to make these cuts."

Broadcaster Lord Bragg has also raised the matter in the House of Lords.

As part of the cuts, the library's permanent collection, which famously stores a copy of every book published in the UK, would be reduced by 15 per cent.

The national newspaper archive - which formed the basis for last year's hit exhibition Hold The Front Page - would also suffer. Since 2001, the British Library has made savings of £40million and controversially reduced staff numbers by 15 per cent.

Staff are so angry at the prospect of cuts that a strike is being held on Wednesday with all reading rooms being closed.

The British Library's website said: "The strike is not aimed at the library but at the Government, and other public service institutions will be affected."

Frequent users include authors Ben Schott, Dan Cruickshank and Benjamin Markovitz. Agoraphobic author Stef Penney, who earlier this month won the Costa First Novel Award for The Tenderness Of Wolves, researched her book in the British Library.

But historian Tristram Hunt said the British Library needed to reform itself as well. "Any cuts made by the Government are misguided and wrong. The Government is short-sighted to institute these cuts because the wealth in knowledge that the library generates more than makes up for the grant," he said.

"But the British Library needs to get its own house in order. It could start by reversing its policy to let in undergraduates, which arose because management bonuses increased if more seats were occupied. Undergraduates hang out and have a good time. But it has resulted in great stress on librarians and users"

A spokesman for the Department of Culture said: "The cultural sector has had huge real-term increases in funding since 1997. Clearly this cannot go on indefinitely."

• A London museum dedicated to one of Britain's foremost designers, William Morris, is facing closure due to budget cuts.

Treasures from the Arts and Crafts movement worth millions of pounds, including some of Morris's original sketches and tapestry, could be sold off.

Waltham Forest council has cut back the opening hours of the museum, in Walthamstow, to save money.

Former culture secretary Chris Smith has joined campaigners fighting to save it.

Morris was born in Walthamstow in 1834 and the gallery was once the designer's family home.

 

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