It gives users at St Pancras faster and more flexible access to its collection of books, maps, music and other material. The system is notable for the uniqueness and size of the catalogues it contains, the complexity of its data structures and its extended character set searching and retrieval for non-Roman scripts. The system consists of three components The Pass Production System which generates reader identification passes and allows entry to the system. The Online Catalogue which gives readers access at over 140 terminals to information on eight million items available to them. The Automated Book Request System which transmits orders for books to the stores where they are held.
Material is sent to readers via a conveyor system.
The British Library's collection is a primary source for studying the thought, history, literature, and culture of the UK and many other countries, attracting academics, writers, and people in business and industry from all over the world. The St Pancras Integrated System gives users faster and more flexible access to this record of an estimated 150 million person years of human achievement, much of it unavailable elsewhere. In the initial year after the opening of the first reading rooms at St Pancras, the system handled over seven hundred thousand requests for books and other items readers wanted to see. The millionth request was placed in March 1999. The St Pancras Integrated System itself provides the basis for further developments already underway in pursuit of our goal to be one of this country's, and the world's, leading information resources in the twenty first century'.