British Library faces threat to treasures

The public’s free access to many of the most important original documents in world literature held at the British Library is under threat because of funding cuts.
In an article in The Observer, the chief executive of the world-renowned institution today urges the government to protect the centuries-old resource – ‘the mind and memory of the nation’. In a strongly worded public plea to make the preservation of standards at the library a priority in the expected round of spending cuts, Lynne Brindley warns that Britain will soon be left without a resource that it has come to take for granted.