The British Library Public Catalogue

A dedicated Web site hosting the British Library Public Catalogue has recently been launched. In press releases it has been described as covering “over 10 million books, journals, reports, conference papers and music scores covering every aspect of human thought since 1450”. There is no doubt that the scope of this catalogue is breathtaking and its size most impressive. To put it into perspective, however, a different piece of publicity referring this time to the whole British Library notes: “The library′s services are based on its outstanding collections, developed over 250 years, of over 150 million items, representing every age...