David Gildeh

Today I paid my second ever visit to the British Library in St. Pancras, but today I actually signed up! All you need is a picture ID (like drivers license) and a utility bill with your home address (like a phone bill). It takes 15 minutes to register as a reader, you get a card, and you’re good to go to access all the reading rooms!

The reason I actually went to sign up was because I’d heard about the Business & IP centre. The centre has workshops for entrepreneurs on different aspects of setting up a business, and also provides a HUGE library of market research reports published in the UK such as Mintel Reports which cost £1000’s to buy online if you want them! On top of that the reading rooms are actually really nice to work, and you can take your laptop inside and use the wireless (which unfortunately costs around £5.50 a day but will be free from October!).

There’s not many things I get excited about from our public services, but the British Library is fantastic and a great resource for start-ups in the UK! However as usual, the government was planning to cut the budget for the library by 7% last year, which was fortunately revoked as stated here.

For more information you can visit the British Library website here, and there’s even a FaceBook group for British Library Entrepreneur and SME Network.