The British library board decided September 18 to abandon a plan to charge researchers a £300 annual fee to use the new British Library in London. In recent weeks, news of the plan had generated a campaign to fight the fees, including pickets outside the $843-million facility at St. Pancras.
A library spokesperson told American Libraries that the protesters' "views were giving support" to the board's longtime reluctance to impose fees but that the library would now "have difficult decisions to make about how it's going to raise revenue." Projecting an £8-million shortfall for the fiscal year beginning next April, he said, "We have to look at what readers and users feel are priorities and to made decisions about where cuts can be made."
The library conducted a user survey this summer, the results of which will be released "within a couple of months" and will be used by the board as a basis for service-reduction decisions.
Posted September 28, 1998.