BROUGHT TO BOOK
IT IS reported that the Minister for the Arts has decided to call a halt to the building of the new British Library. This is welcome • news for users of the Round Reading Room at the British Museum and fully justifies all the arguments of those who, led by Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, have consistently been opposed to the extravagant and architecturally megaloma- niac project. Only the firm support of Mrs Thatcher has until now ensured the pur- suance of this librarian's dream; now evidently even she has faced up to the unacceptable financial realities of concen- trating most of the British Library on the St Pancras site. This may well be the ideal time to curtail the development, as what will still be built will satisfy genuine needs, notably the provision of a new science reference library. The humanities have never needed new reading rooms and are now well served by the admirable and practical Round Reading Room. What is needed are more convenient bookstores and these can now be built on the unoccu- pied part of the St Pancras goods station site. A simple, gigantic book stack would be a much cheaper building than the elaborate and over-computerised further phases of the new British Library. What is vital .is that the British Museum Reading Room remains in its present use and is, in the future, served from St Pancras either by fleets of vans or by an underground railway. The Government has at last recog- nised that scholars' opinions are more important than librarians' ambitions.
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