@bldigischol.bsky.social
Enabling innovative research with British Library digital collections. Posts by our Digital Curators were at https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/ We're not age verified (!) so we can't see DMs. Relayed from Mastodon by Skymoth
Get in touch to tell us how your heritage sector organisation is already using, or would like to use, AI. We’re seeking contributions of 300-500 words.
Express interest to our Newsletter Editors, Katherine (k.a.krick@gmail.com) and Jane (j.m.gallagher@leeds.ac.uk) by 6th March.
Masthead for the Bee-Hive, featuring an image of a beehive and representations of various trades and industry.
It's #MastheadMonday again, & today we're featuring The Bee-Hive (1861-1878), an important trades-union publication. It fought for improved workers rights, but became embroiled in the fractious politics of the trades-union movement. Free to view here: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/beehive
23.02.2026 14:52 — 👍 11 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
The LIBER AI Taskforce has launched a series of short seminars! Friday's first seminar is very much a listening exercise to learn where European research libraries are with AI in libraries from participants libereurope.eu/article/libe...
#AI4LAM
Does your Friday need a burst of inspiration? Try @arnicas.bsky.social's 'Image Prompt Inspiration: 3 random nouns and CC images from Flickr (British Library scans as default)' (yay for open access images!)
ghostweather.com/apps/flickr-...
Our Flickr images live on, still creating delight and wonder!
20.02.2026 11:00 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Curling stones on an ice rink. Image by Felix from Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The 2026 Winter Olympics are underway in Italy where 2,900 athletes from 92 National Olympic Committees will take part in Alpine skiing, curling, ice hockey and more. Find out how you can help preserve web content for this historic event here: link.bl.uk/7yj
#Olympics @netpreserve.bsky.social
A chunk of flat stone with a worn away inscription
Is your research related to Asia or Africa?
Join us on Friday 27 February for an open day exploring our Asian and African collections as well as those of @soasuni.bsky.social , @sas-news.bsky.social and @senatehouselib.bsky.social
Book your place here: link.bl.uk/ctf
Despite recent challenges, our UK Web Archive team remains dedicated to safeguarding the nation’s online heritage.
Find out more about UK Web Archive recovery in this latest blog post here: link.bl.uk/aaq
To celebrate the BNA reaching 100 million pages, my colleague Claire O'Halloran has written a blog sharing some of our highlights. A huge achievement-well done to everyone involved at @britishlibrary.bsky.social & @findmypast.bsky.social Here’s to the next 100 million! www.bl.uk/stories/blog...
19.02.2026 20:57 — 👍 28 🔁 17 💬 0 📌 0
💠 Meet our #RLUK26 Keynote 🎙️
Dr Carla Hayden was 14th Librarian of Congress, 1st woman & African American to lead LoC. Dr Hayden is currently Senior Fellow @mellon.org advising on opportunities to support + advance libraries & archives
#RLUK26 is a virtual event on 25-26 March
ℹ️ 🎟 bit.ly/RLUKconf
A colour block banner with the words 'International Fellowships 2026' written on the left-hand side.
There are only three weeks left to apply for the International Fellowships 2026 programme. The scheme allows early career, international researchers to collaborate on a project with a UK partner.
Learn more and apply now: https://bit.ly/3LaMIBC
A photo of an elegant grade-II listed tomb in West Norwood cemetery
A 1914 competition map: Changing the map of Europe
8 years ago, at the British Library, I first saw this map: an FT reader competition to predict the boundaries of Europe after WW1. I made a note to find out more one day - which ultimately led me last month to this tomb in West Norwood cemetery. You can read more here: www.ft.com/content/79a4...
15.02.2026 17:00 — 👍 35 🔁 9 💬 2 📌 2
Highly illustrated masthead for Illustrated London Life. It’s issue number 2, March 18th 1843 and was priced at three pence.
#MastheadMonday is back with the Illustrated London Life, which lasted only 23 issues (Apr-Aug 1843). It was 1 of many attempts to capitalise on the success of the Illustrated London News (1842-2003). Digitised by the British Library & free-to-view: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/illus...
16.02.2026 10:28 — 👍 7 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Today the British Newspaer Archive reached 100 million pages! What an epic achievement! So many interesting pages to explore. And we’re not stopping there the BL & FMP will continue to digitise, so here’s to the next 100 million!
blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2026/02/16/c...
Touching tribute to Paul Ayris. The UK open research community owes him a great debt.
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...
1/ The Endangered Archives Programme out of British Library provides guidelines that contain "hints, advice and experiences from people who have completed projects everywhere around the globe from Latin America to Africa to Asia."
www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...
ATBL making our Bluesky debut to say: JOIN US March 9th and support @britishlibrary.bsky.social! #medievalmanuscripts, scholarly presentations, community, & more, @nysoclib.bsky.social. Tickets are $150 and will help digitize BL #medieval manuscripts. @bldigischol.bsky.social RSVP: tinyurl.com/44
06.02.2026 14:42 — 👍 10 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 1I'm co-supervising a PhD placement on 'War Poetry in the Manuscript Collections: Cataloguing, Discovery and Outreach'. Please have a look at the project profiles and share this with any PhD students who may be interested in applying (by 27 February).
05.02.2026 12:25 — 👍 2 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
The front page of the Daily Graphic newspaper published Saturday 25 August, 1917, featuring portraits of 'Women in the Order of the British Empire', including Lady Byron, the honourable Mrs Alfred Lyttelton, Her Majesty the Queen.
Apply for our PhD placement scheme to get involved in extraordinary research at the Library. There are eight available placements exploring a variety of themes including war poetry, 21st-century digital tools, illustrated newspapers and decarbonisation.
Find out more: link.bl.uk/PhDPlacements
New year, new postdoctoral fellowship!
Be our next Visiting Research Fellow in Sustainability & Environment (£10k bursary, P/T, flexible, Apr-Oct 26). Applications invited from arts and humanities researchers within 10yr of PhD. Deadline 9 Feb noon.
For more information: www.bl.uk/services/res...
'Elgar's letters and digital tools'
3 month (or p/t equivalent) PhD Placement opportunity at the British Library, deadline 27 Feb:
www.bl.uk/services/res...
@britishlibrary.bsky.social
@discoxford.bsky.social
@oxmusicfaculty.bsky.social
@tmusicology.bsky.social
@rmastudents.bsky.social
UK Research and Innovation Arts and Humanities Research Council Executive Chair Candidate Prospectus January 2026
Important! AHRC is looking for a new Executive Chair. A critical role for arts and humanities. £160k - £170k. Please share widely to help get the best possible field!
fa-evzn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Booking now open for 'Climate Resilience in the Cultural Sector' @britishlibrary.bsky.social Friday 6 March 9-5pm. For a day specifically for the culture sector to explore ways to boost climate resilience and protect our heritage! www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-re... #ClimateChange
30.01.2026 14:03 — 👍 3 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 2
It is a huge pleasure to report that the LSE now has an excellent research repository with great search facilities at the brand new LSE Research Online. At long last LSERO is suitable for a world-leading social science university. researchonline.lse.ac.uk
Many congratulations to LSE Library staff.
[NEW REPORT] International Metadata Recommendations and Platform-Specific Requirements for Open Access Books and Chapters
Read more on our website 👉 buff.ly/6Ab7hhf
@cilipmdg.bsky.social @uksg.bsky.social
@oipassoc.bsky.social @operaseu.bsky.social
Photo: Jon Snobri via Unsplash
British Library placements for doctoral students at UK universities: www.bl.uk/services/res...
Good opportunity to spend focused months at the BL. One of these is 'Describing the British Library’s Illustrated and Illuminated Incunabula'!
Deadline's 27 February.
Even while the UK Web Archive’s public site is offline, the work hasn’t stopped. Behind the scenes, teams are still collecting, preserving, and building new collections to safeguard the UK’s digital history. 💻
www.bl.uk/stories/blog...
#WebArchiving #UKWebArchive #UKLegalDeposit
Your semi-regular reminder that the British Library's Research Repository has stacks of open datasets from collections, and research by Library staff e.g. bl.iro.bl.uk/catalog?f[hu... #OpenAccess #OpenGLAM
28.01.2026 09:37 — 👍 12 🔁 12 💬 0 📌 0
Fantastic Futures 2025 seems like a distant memory, which makes it even more enjoyable to read this blog post and recall brilliant papers and inspiring interactions. Slides, posters and recordings now available! www.bl.uk/stories/blog...
#ff2025 @britishlibrary.bsky.social @bldigischol.bsky.social
Ignore a lot of the nonsense hype about AI, it’s fora like this which are thinking about use cases which may prove to be genuinely useful.
Handwritten Text Recognition
Document parsing and Named Entity Recognition.
etc
Properly applied, deep learning can potentially be a great help to archivists
