British Library Method

British Library Method

(algorithm)Brute force searching.

According to legends circulating in the 1970s, in the BritishLibrary books are searched for by examining each booksequentially in the first shelf, then the next shelf,continuing until the book is found or the entire library hasbeen searched.

The term was referred to in a Dutch coursebook, "Inleiding InDe Informatica" (Introduction to Informatics) from a coursegiven by C.H.A. Koster and Th.A. Zoethout. This was based ona course given at the TU Berlin.