Published 7 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1116
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1116

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Amnesia strikes the memory business

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A poster advertising the British Library’s Business and Intellectual Property Centre shows a padlocked garden shed, on which the following words have been painted: "Inside is your invention. We’ll help you stop it becoming someone else’s." Nothing could better symbolise the suburban smallmindedness underlying this initiative.

I find it depressing because it represents an absolute repudiation of the role of libraries. Has the British Library forgotten that, along with archives and museums, libraries make up the memory business, preserving the resources of the past for present and future use? At the heart of this business lies an optimism, a generosity of spirit, an understanding of how progress happens.

Readers of this journal don’t need reminding that science is a collaborative effort, with each important development heavily dependent on earlier ones. The references at the end of every article attest to this. As Isaac Newton put it, we don’t see further . . . [Full text of this article]

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