British Library launches new Reprints service

Innovative services to streamline provision of reprints and e-prints from the British Library.

From today, the British Library is offering customers the ability to order multiple copies of print and electronic articles from a wide range of published material more quickly than ever before.

"Until now, if a customer wanted 100 copies of an article from the British Library, they would have to pay full copyright fees 100 times over," explains Mat Pfleger, Head of Sales and Marketing at the British Library. "Under our new Reprints service and following negotiation with a range of publishers, customers will now be able to benefit from sliding scale copyright fees on higher volume requests. We also aim to set a new industry standard on response times, as several of our customers have told us they have to wait between 5 and 10 days for a quote from some other providers. We aim to quote within 24 hours."

Leading publishers whose research journals will be available as Reprints include Wiley, Future Science Group, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, and Nature. The Library's agreements with these publishers, allows them to offer a faster service compared to the competition, as orders can be processed without publisher consultation.

Stephen Galt of Future Science Group welcomed the new service: "Copyright issues are of paramount concern to scholarly publishers and we support any new service that combines convenience for the end user with secure management of publishers' rights. This new service from the British Library offers the information provision industry a model for how to use technology to achieve that balance."

For further information please contact: Ben Sanderson at the British Library Press Office (telephone +44 (0)1937 546126, email: ben.sanderson@bl.uk) or Lawrence Christensen (telephone +44 (0)20 7412 7114, email: lawrence.christensen@bl.uk)

Notes for Editors

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk.