The British Library has today received a commitment of £33m [that's nearly $54 million/U.S.] from the Government to preserve and make accessible the world's greatest newspaper collection.
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The British Library collects a copy of every local, regional and national newspaper published in the UK, plus 250 international titles. This unparalleled newspaper collection is an unique resource of over 750 million pages and is used for research by 30,000 people - genealogists, local historians and researchers from the creative industries - every year. The collection is used as source material for countless new books, newspapers, television programmes, films, documentaries, academic papers, local history projects and family trees in the UK every year, making a vital contribution to the UK economy.
However the collection is currently housed in dilapidated conditions in Colindale in North London where 15% of the collection is already beyond use and 19% is in peril. The £33m investment will allow the collection to be moved to a state of the art storage facility in Yorkshire while allowing digital and microfilm access to the collection from the British Library's flagship building at St Pancras in London.
Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, said, "We welcome the commitment to the £33m investment to preserve and make accessible the world's greatest newspaper collection. This project will secure the collection's future and benefit the whole nation. It has the full support of the newspaper industry.
[Our emphasis]"Our plans are already advanced with a number of key contractors already in place. We are 'shovel ready' and this commitment will allow us to start building in 2010."
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