British Library Content and
Services for Business and
Management research
Michelangelo Staffolani & Sally Halper
Curators – Business & Management,
Social Sciences, The British Library
The British Library
• The British Library is the UK’s national library and one of the world’s
greatest research libraries.
• Our collections contain over 157 million items across all subjects.
• We are open to everyone who wants to do research – in person in our
Reading Rooms, and online via the Management & Business Studies
Portal www.mbsportal.bl.uk
• How to get a Reader Pass
www.bl.uk/reshelp/inrrooms/stp/register/stpregister.html
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A bit about you…
1. Your name, position, institution and your research interests?
2. Do you already use the British Library at all? e.g. interlibrary loan
3. Which (other) libraries or information sources do you use?
4. What information do you find hard to access? (if any)
5. What would you like to get out of today’s presentation?
Note: We’ll ask you for your views again at the end of our talk. There’s also
a practical exercise later where we’ll discuss your research, and how the
Library can be used to support them.
There will also be an opportunity to ask any questions.
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Structure of presentation today
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What have we got and how is it changing?
What do we mean by ‘an area of focus’?
The MBS Portal website
What else do we do?
What’s new
Practical exercise
Q &A
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1. What have we got …for Business and
management research?
1. Legal Deposit and NPLD:
Books: c2 million for MBS and growing
Journals: c37,000 titles currently received plus e-journal databases
Statistics: More and more digital sources, UK, European and
international
‘Grey lit’ = research reports etc from government, thinktanks etc
UK Domain websites
Market research, Country and Industry reports, Trade press, IP
2. Databases: See stripey sheet, plus all the big ones like Web of Science,
JSTOR etc
3. News media: TV, Radio and newspapers
4. The MBS Portal website
5. Unique content: We have collections such as annual reports, directories
and trade literature that contain unique content. Sound recordings.
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How is it changing?
British Library Content Strategy to 2016
More and more Digital Content – mainly via Non Print Legal Deposit
Legal Deposit remains core of our collections
But shrinking and limited resources (both money and staff),
we have to make choices about where to focus our money and efforts,
beyond what we get on Legal Deposit (digital as well as print since April)
Aim = excellent collections
We have identified 3 potential areas of focus up to 31 March 2016:
• Innovation & Entrepreneurship – policy driver, demand and service.
• Management & Leadership – supports impact agenda and practitioner
audience.
• Management and Business History – provide support for research
community
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2. What do we mean by area of focus?
• Content development BEYOND what we get on Legal
Deposit (print and digital).
For example: for Management & Business History we
have collections such as annual reports, directories and
trade literature. Add more rights-cleared content to MBS
Portal (free and via deals with publishers).
• More engagement with the research community for that
area, and with practitioners.
• We want to hear from researchers about how they use
different types of content and what the British Library
can do to help them access it.
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3. Management & Business Studies Portal
• A British Library website for
Management & Business Studies
bringing together our vast print
and digital collections.
• Contains downloadable full text
research reports, working papers,
articles from high-quality
publishers of management
research. Market research from
Keynote + others soon
• Can be tailored to suit your interests and can alert you to new
content (digital and books, journals) that match your subject interests
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Benefits
• 24-7 access: to full text, high quality digital content – for free
• Find more relevant material: we give access to hard to find research reports or
material which can be hidden behind membership barriers
• Save time: Find print and digital formats in one ‘hit’ from your own desk, then
choose the delivery route that suits you. Includes BL Document Supply
Services.
• Dissemination: Management researchers can log their research papers with us
getting it in front of over 86,000 professional managers – helps to get it used
and show impact. Email social-sciences-digital@bl.uk
• User led: User panels will help develop the site so that the MBS Portal will
always represent their needs
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Our users
3,000 circa registered users since launch in October 2010.
(270 CMI members, 120 BAM, 65 are researchers funded by ESRC)
6,000 visitors last month: 12,000 page views that month
User profile:
Professional managers 25%
Researchers in HE = 24%: students (14%) lecturers (11.5%)
Entrepreneurs (11%)
Librarians/information specialists (8%)
User satisfaction: 70% rate the Portal excellent or very good;
60% would definitely recommend.
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4. What else do we do?
• Partnership with Chartered Management Institute (CMI):
the main professional body for management in the UK,
with 86,000 members
• Management Book of the Year
• Management Articles initiative – see next slide
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Management Articles initiative
• Joint initiative by CMI, BAM, British Library, ABS, and AMBA.
• Sponsored by Wiley
• £1,000 prize to author of highest rated article. 2013 is third year.
• CMI’s members rate the articles and contribute short supplementary
comments.
• An online knowledge transfer ‘market place’ to enable academics in
UK business schools to share their most accessible and relevant
research for rating by 86,000 practitioners.
• A collection of the top rated research articles from UK business
schools assessed for relevance and clarity of writing by practitioners.
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David Willetts likes it
“ Management Articles of the Year gives managers the
opportunity to stay up to date with the latest and best
thinking from British Business Schools. Opening up
research and data to a wider audience can help
to foster innovation, drive growth and create
new areas of academic discovery.”
The Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP
Minister of State for Universities and Science
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5. What’s new?
• RAE 2008 research outputs: All c.12,000 being rightscleared and added to the MBS Portal throughout 2014
• Emerald Journals: 6 titles initially, in full text
Journal of Management History
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
Social Enterprise Journal
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research
European Journal of Innovation Management
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
Coming soon: Oral History ‘Pioneers of Qualitative Methods’
http://www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/pioneers/
New Oral Histories of Business & Industry…
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6. Practical exercise
1. Get into small groups and introduce yourselves briefly.
2. Choose one of your research projects to talk about.
3. Discuss how you would use the British Library to help with
your research:
- What would you do?
- What content would you use?
- Which services?
Michelangelo & Sally will circulate and answer questions
4. Repeat for another project
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Your views and Q & A
• Having heard our talk: Were you surprised by anything we
said or did you learn anything new?
• Do you think you’re more likely to use the British Library
now? And the MBS Portal?
• In practical terms, is there anything else you would like the
Library to do, to better support you in your research?
• Any questions from you?
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Thank you
Please contact us with your thoughts and suggestions:
Sally Halper & Michelangelo Staffolani
Social Sciences
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
Email: mbseditor@bl.uk
Contribute content to the MBS Portal: social-sciences-digital@bl.uk
www.bl.uk
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