British Library Direct hits 5000 registered user mark

Service attracts researchers from academic and corporate markets worldwide

The British Library's recently-launched online document supply service, British Library Direct, has just signed up its 5000th registered user, just five months after going live in June. The service, which provides complete resource-discovery-to-delivery access to millions of research articles in the Library's collections, now serves customers in some 138 countries ranging from Korea (North and South) to Christmas Island.

Early user feedback indicates that users of British Library Direct are attracted by its ease of use, the simplicity of finding and ordering a document and the swiftness of delivery, which is by secure PDF. Over half of users originate from outside the UK, with registered customers in every continent and even such far-flung locations as the Spratly Islands (a disputed group of 100 reefs and islets in the South China Sea).

British Library Direct ( http://direct.bl.uk ) offers pay-as-you-go access to articles from the top 20,000 international research journals, in fields ranging from aeronautics to agriculture, from pharmacy to law. Upon finding a relevant article, the user can then order it online and pay by credit card. There is no need to subscribe in order to use the service and articles can be ordered singly or several at a time. Nearly 20% of the articles can be downloaded instantly.

Subject strengths include medicine, engineering, science, food and agriculture, economics, environment, law and education, with articles ranging from the latest research into avian flu to 'Phenotypic features of the domestic pigs bred in Roman settlements of Pompeii and Caralis' (in The Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology).

Mat Pfleger, Head of Sales and Marketing at the British Library, commented: "5000 registrations in the four months since the launch of British Library Direct exceeds our early expectations. As well as being very diverse in terms of location, these users are mostly new to the Library rather than existing document supply customers. One of the key objectives of the service was to make the Library's collection more accessible and we have certainly achieved that with British Library Direct."

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.