World Libraries: British Library brings changes to its website

The British Library has Recently introduced a new home page and search facility on its website. This new home page, which is the result of extensive user testing, has new navigation labels, a rotating carousel of images and dropdown menus to help users find the full range of web content and services much more easily.

While the new home page looks quite different, the rest of the website is unchanged. Meanwhile, a major project to redevelop a new website from scratch is already underway.

The new search ('Explore the British Library') is a major change, as it now allows users to search much more than web pages and the main catalogue. It retrieves twice as many journal article records as before, as well as sound recordings, 'trade literature', theses, datasets, archived UK websites, maps and music scores - adding up to over 60 million items.