MINUTES OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY, 14 MAY 2019 Minutes Status: Unapproved Draft Publication Status: OPEN with REDACTIONS (highlighted in grey) Minutes of the 374th meeting of the British Library Board held in the British Library, Boston Spa on Tuesday, 14 May 2019, beginning at approximately 09.30 a.m. Present: Mr Delroy Beverley Dame Carol Black (Chair) Dr Robert Black Ms Tracy Chevalier Lord Janvrin Mr Roly Keating (Chief Executive) Ms Laela Pakpour Tabrizi Mr Patrick Plant Dr Jeremy Silver Dr Simon Thurley Dr Wei Yang Apologies: Ms Jana Bennett In attendance: Ms Lynn Brown, Member of the Board’s Audit Committee Mr Nicholas Deyes, Member of the Board’s Audit Committee Ms Liz Jolly, Chief Librarian Mr Phil Spence, Chief Operating Officer Mr Richard Gibby, Head of Governance (Secretary) By invitation: Mr Jamie Andrews, Head of Culture and Learning (for item 3) Ms Linda Arnold-Stratford, Legal Deposit Libraries’ Liaison Manager (item 4) Mr Alasdair Ball, Head of Collection Management (for item 4) Mr Conrad Bodman, Head of Culture Programmes (for item 3) Ms Sandra Bradbury, Head of Assurance (for item 6) Ms Cilé Everett, Governance Manager (observing) Ms Jayne King, Head of Finance (for item 5) Mr David Sparling, Head of Technology (for item 4) Mr Andrew Wood, Assurance Manager (for item 6) During the preceding evening, the Board had received a presentation from Mr Keating on “Living Knowledge: the next four years”. BLB 19/38 Page 1 of 8 BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD Minutes of 14 May 2019 1 PRELIMINARY MATTERS 1.1 The Chair welcomed members to the 374th meeting of the British Library Board. She extended a particular welcome to Mr Beverley, Ms Tabrizi, Dr Silver and Dr Yang, who had been newly appointed to the Board by the Secretary of State with effect from 13 May, the previous day. The Library could not inform staff or interested parties of their appointments until the government had announced them, which was likely to happen within a few days. Ms Jana Bennett had also been appointed to the Board with effect from 13 May but was unable to attend this meeting and had offered her apologies, which were noted. 1.2 The Chair also welcomed Ms Brown and Mr Deyes, members of the Board’s Audit Committee, who had been invited to attend the meeting as observers on this occasion, in part because the Board meeting would be followed that afternoon by a meeting of the Audit Committee and a number of the agenda topics for discussion and approval during this Board meeting were germane to the business of the Audit Committee. 1.2 After members and attendees had introduced themselves, the Chair invited members to declare any interests pertinent to the issues to be discussed; none were declared. 1.3 The minutes of the meeting on 26 February 2019 (BLB 19/24) were accepted and approved, and the summary of matters arising from that meeting (paper BLB 19/25) was noted. 2 CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S UPDATE AND INTRODUCTION 2.1 British Library North – The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for DCMS, Michael Ellis MP, had visited Boston Spa during the previous week. It was the first such visit to Boston Spa by an arts & heritage minister for many years. He had been fully briefed about Boston Spa Renewed as well as about the work being done with Leeds City Council. He had asked the Library to issue an office notice informing all staff that he was impressed by the operations in Boston Spa and how proud he was to have the British Library Boston Spa within his portfolio. 2.2 2.3 St Pancras Transformed – Negotiations with TfL/Crossrail2 were making good progress and it was hoped that final Heads of Terms for a conditional development agreement could be finalised soon. 1 SMBL Ltd is the joint venture between Stanhope plc and Mitsui Fudosan (UK), formed to undertake this development. BLB 19/38 Page 2 of 8 BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD Minutes of 14 May 2019 A full update on St Pancras Transformed would be given to Board members later this summer. 2.4 DCMS Permanent Secretary – Sarah Healey, formerly Director General of the Department for Exiting the European Union, had now taken over from Sue Owen as Permanent Secretary for DCMS. She was already familiar to the Library, having previously been a Director General at DCMS. 2.5 Spending Review 2019 – It remained unknown whether there would indeed be a Comprehensive Spending Review this year, in view of the continuing political uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Neither the Library nor DCMS had been given any scenario-modelling commission yet. The Chief Executive was due to meet DCMS’ Finance Director and Director for Arts, Heritage and Tourism later in the week. 2.6 Living Knowledge Network – the network had been formally launched in St Pancras on 2 April, following the success of the two-year pilot phase funded by Arts Council England. It now had 22 public library partners and the national libraries of Scotland and Wales. 2.7 Business & IP Centre network - the first Business & IP Centre service in Scotland, the twelfth National Network Centre based on the Library’s own Centre in St Pancras, had opened formally on Friday 26 April in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library. The new Business & IP Centre was a partnership with Glasgow Life, the National Library of Scotland and Santander, offering support to entrepreneurs and small businesses in Glasgow. 2.8 Start-ups in London Libraries – the Chief Executive and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for DCMS, Michael Ellis MP, had both attended the launch of the three-year ‘SILL’ project, in City Hall on Thursday 2 May. In partnership with ten London boroughs, and with funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and support from JP Morgan, the coordinated network of free support for start-ups would launch in over 60 public libraries. An article about the initiative by the Chief Executive had been published in the Evening Standard. 2.9 Ethiopian collections – The Head of Collections and Curation, the Head of Asian and African Collections and the Library’s expert in Ethiopian collections had just returned from a visit to Addis Ababa at the invitation of the Ethiopian minister for culture, to discuss potential opportunities for knowledge exchange under the Library’s Memorandum Of Understanding with the Ethiopian national library. Board members might be interested in reading Dr Luisa Mengoni’s report of the visit. 3 EXHIBITIONS AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY: REVIEW OF 2016-19 CYCLE AND FUTURE STRATEGIC DIRECTION 3.1 The Chief Librarian introduced a presentation by Mr Andrews and Mr Bodman which highlighted key points from paper BLB 19/26. Members noted that the Library’s level of exhibitions activity, and the numbers of visitors and associated events, had all increased dramatically since St Pancras (and its spaces designed for exhibitions) opened just over BLB 19/38 Page 3 of 8 BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD Minutes of 14 May 2019 twenty years ago. Some changes to the existing spaces were now being made to facilitate more exhibitions in a slightly different approach and, of course, it was anticipated that more galleries and spaces would be created in future as a result of the St Pancras Transformed development. 3.2 The Library also now planned exhibitions within a series of 3-year cycles, the first such cycle having just ended with Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War. This exhibition and Harry Potter: A History of Magic had seen the largest number of visitors, both considerably more than planned. On the other hand, Shakespeare in Ten Acts had performed the least well in the cycle while it was on, but had created the greatest legacy of the cycle in terms of additional resources and further interest. 3.3 Overall, the last cycle had achieved its goals, with some outstanding successes. The review identified a number of positive benefits and outcomes, as well as some lessons or issues to bear in mind for the next cycle. It also proposed, for the next cycle, some creative principles, strategic objectives and a core approach or methodology for exhibitions and their planning. 3.4 In discussing the paper, members noted that the next three-year cycle would again contain a mix of both ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions designed for general (popular) audiences and exhibitions designed more for certain segments. Overall, the cycle should cover its own costs through a combination of income from ticket sales and fundraising, although some individual exhibitions would generate more income and profits than others. Investments in online content, learning resources etc. may take longer to recoup, or may require additional fundraising. International (touring) exhibitions should always pay for themselves. 3.5 The Board considered adding another strategic objective, about using exhibitions as an opportunity to illuminate or add to the public debate about significant national issues and questions. For instance, Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War had helped people think about questions of national identity and Britons’ relationships with other Europeans at a time when such issues were part of the national debate. 3.6 Board members debated the paper’s distinguishing between ‘core’ and ‘aspirational’ shows. On the one hand they were a useful way of planning a varied programme of exhibitions designed to appeal in different ways to different audiences. On the other hand, there could be a risk that more creative energy was put into ‘aspirational’ shows and that, as a result, ‘core’ shows might be perceived as less attractive or worthwhile. 3.7 Bearing in mind the limitations of our current physical exhibition spaces, there might be benefits in exploring greater use of virtual reality technologies to enable additional people to ‘visit’ the exhibition online.