From the BL: We’re continuing to experience disruption as a result of a cyber-attack that took place in October 2023. The outage is still affecting our website, online systems and services, as well as some onsite services, however our buildings are open as usual. The attack caused substantial damage that is complex and challenging to…
Category: British libraries
Library tourism by Mark Dapin
One way to get a sense of a country’s cultural touchstones is to visit its libraries — both the famous and lesser-known ones. BY MARK DAPIN Some years ago I was at a conference of international thriller writers (no, I hadn’t known they were a thing either) when a fellow Australian author suggested we visit…
All the Will in the world: Four centuries of the First Folio (State Library of New South Wales)
The 1623 volume, Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, aka the ‘First Folio’, was 400 years old in 2023. Why is it so special? I should begin by putting all my cards on the table. I’m fascinated by Shakespeare and his books, including the First Folio. In the immediate pre-Covid years, I took my…
Friday essay: the library – humanist ideal, social glue and now, tourism hotspot
Stuart Kells, La Trobe University Last year two Danish librarians – Christian Lauersen and Marie Eiriksson – founded Library Planet: a worldwide, crowdsourced, online library travel guide. According to them, Library Planet is meant to inspire travellers “to open the awesome book that is our world of libraries, cities and countries”. The name of the…
The Manchester Central Library – a community hub in neoclassical surroundings
Written by Concetta La Spada, library tourist from Cambridge For how to contribute to Library Planet look here: https://libraryplanet.net/contribute/ In early July, I visited Manchester for the CILIP Conference. I had never been to Manchester and, during my free time, I could visit this city of such important history for the UK. During the Industrial Revolution…
The Storyhouse, Chester, England – Once upon a time there lived a library…
Written by Phil Segal For how to contribute to Library Planet look here: https://libraryplanetnet.wordpress.com/contribute/ Once upon a time in a land far, far away… Chester, North West England, to be precise – there lived a library. The history of The Storyhouse reads like something of a fairytale in itself; a formerly unremarkable repository that had seen…
Pusey House Library, Oxford, England – the heady mixture of incense and old books
Written by Anna James For how to contribute to Library Planet look here: https://libraryplanetnet.wordpress.com/contribute/ Pusey House (pronounced Pew-zee) was opened in 1884 as a memorial to Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), Regius Professor of Hebrew, Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, and for forty years a figurehead of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England. When…
Manchester Central Library, UK – Think, relax, explore!
Written by Dr Biddy Casselden Currently on secondment as Head of Library Learning and Research Services (until November 2019), Northumbria University Library, Newcastle upon Tyne UK For how to contribute to Library Planet look here: https://libraryplanet.net/contribute/ Manchester Central Library sits proudly in St Peter’s Square, and really is a ‘People’s Palace’ to behold. The creation…
Wolverhampton University Library – Bringing real art to the book shelves
Written by Rebecca Collins For how to contribute to Library Planet look here: https://libraryplanet.net/contribute/ I paid a different kind of visit to the University of Wolverhampton Library a little while back. My business was to paint walls and my road to those walls was not guided by the normal way to a library. Serendipity: ‘the…
Library Planet 