Yesterday I learnt that, if I want to look at a book in the Middle Temple library, I’ll have to pay £30 for the privilege. ‘As a private library, we are forced, by the rules of the Inn, to charge non-members for access’. I immediately started fuming; if every library in the land starts charging for access, a lot of serious research is going to become impossible. But perhaps this is the future, and we’re all going to have to get used to it. Are other libraries already routinely charging their academic users? Are librarians contemplating the introduction of charges, as budgets get squeezed and educational institutions become more and more private?
2 Responses to “moneychangers in the library”
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Katie Birkwood Says:
August 12th, 2010 at 12:34Have you seen the BL users’ survey (<a href="http://www.bl.uk/surveys/publicgrant/survey.html"http://www.bl.uk/surveys/publicgrant/survey.html)? There are questions there about how important it is to you to be able to acquire a readers’ pass or use the reading rooms for free.
I suspect that the libraries of the Inns of Court do have particular rules relating to their status that may well be long standing, though I’m still surprised that they’re charging for special collections access (I know of at least one library that charges readers who wish to use it “for purposes of commerce or profit”, but I doubt that applies here!).
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Helen Vincent Says:
September 24th, 2010 at 16:37Jason, many research libraries have charged for access for many years – maybe you’ve just been lucky enough always to have been eligible for free access to what you’ve needed before. Both the Bodleian and your own university library charge non-UK academics and British scholars who happen not to have a current university affiliation. If a member of the Middle Temple is conducting a piece of research and needs to consult books in Cambridge, they could end up paying £30. And of course there are also the libraries which won’t charge you – but won’t let you consult their books either…