Michael Day

Would the UK need to rejoin the EU before trying this "proper Brexit"? 🤔

A dragon has landed at the British Library 🐉

Created exclusively for Fairy Tales, this new illustration from the legendary Chris Riddell will guard the doors to our magical family exhibition opening in March.

Tickets are now on sale at link.bl.uk/FairyTales

British Library placement profiles include illustrated & illuminated incunabula, Elgar's letters, law & legal studies, UK newsletter publishing, war poetry, digital sustainability, decarbonisation and more. Deadline 27 February. #Skystorians

Fantastic Futures 2025: highlights and resources Hundreds of information professionals gathered in the British Library’s Knowledge Centre to share the state of the art in AI research for cultural heritage.

In December, hundreds of library, museum, archive and research staff gathered at the British Library to share the state of the art in AI research for cultural heritage. Find out more: https://www.bl.uk/stories/blogs/posts/fantastic-futures-2025-highlights-and-resources #AI4LAM

Fantastic Futures 2025: highlights and resources Hundreds of information professionals gathered in the British Library’s Knowledge Centre to share the state of the art in AI research for cultural heritage.

Excellent post from @britishlibrary.bsky.social on the Fantastic Futures 2025 conf they hosted, on museums & libs use of AI www.bl.uk/stories/blog...

You could hold out for the quails' eggs, but be prepared for a catering-style insulated steel jug containing tepid water, with a collection of teabags; perhaps even nicely-branded teabags, with fruit and Earl Grey varieties! It will all taste the same, alas, with the tepid water!

A woman in an orange sweater looks at a pull-out panel of stamps in the British Library's collection.

Looking to grow your library career? Don’t miss the chance to join us this summer for our International Library Leaders Programme. Applications close on 5 February.

Learn more: link.bl.uk/ILLP2026

Image of writer and essayist Ronald Blythe, best known for book Akenfield, which explores changing rural life in Suffolk during the 20th century.

We're delighted to have acquired the archive of writer and essayist Ronald Blythe, best known for book Akenfield, which explores changing rural life in Suffolk during the 20th century.

Discover more in this blog post by curator Helen Melody: link.bl.uk/86s

An illustration of Battersea power station with a view of a boat from the river.

Have you completed a PhD in the last 10 years? Applications are open for our Postdoctoral Visiting Fellowship in Sustainability and Environment. Funding covers an £8000 bursary for part-time (0.5) research over 8 months, plus travel expenses. Apply by Monday 9 February. link.bl.uk/VisitingFellowship

Thank you! I've visited the site a few times, because a possible distant relative was in a "B" Battalion tank on 31 July 1917, possibly B.41 of No. 6 Coy; he died of wounds, and has a grave marker in Birr Cross Roads Cemetery

The archaeology of world war I tanks in the Ypres Salient (Belgium): A non‐invasive approach In the past decade, the research of archaeological remains from World War I has become mainstream. This article uses non-destructive techniques to investigate the possible material remains of tank wa...

Was the dig related to this 2018 paper by Birger Stichelbout et al., or a different one?
doi.org/10.1002/arp....

Web archive research in an age of Smart Data | British Library The web represents the largest unstructured data collection, with a huge variety of data types, creators and sources, distributed across the world. The arc

The British Library is hosting a free event on 9 Feb, 18:30: Web Archive Research in an Age of Smart Data. Hear from Emmanouil Tranos, Thom Vaughan, Dr Andrea Kocsis, and Cameron Huggett. Chair: Jane Winters.
📍Location: BL Knowledge Centre, London.
events.bl.uk/events/web-a...

From the British Library:

Want to level up your library career this year?

We’re looking for international mid-career library and archive professionals to join us this summer at our International Library Leaders Programme. [1/2]

Holst's War With composer Gustav Holst in Salonica and Constantinople as he served with the YMCA

Discover the wartime service of composer Gustav Holst in my new Substack article:
open.substack.com/pub/kathryns...

Thomas Cranmer’s Register Discover Thomas Cranmer’s Register (1533–1553), a pivotal Reformation document revealing England’s break from Rome and the rise of Protestantism. This open access book offers unprecedented access with...

The death of Dr Paul Ayris is huge loss to UCL, to @uclpress.bsky.social and to the open access/scholarly communications community more broadly.

His open access Thomas Cranmer’s Register
A record of archiepiscopal administration in diocese and province is published by the Press in January. 1/2

I am also very sorry to learn of this news; I used to meet Paul from time-to-time in Jisc and RLUK contexts, and our conversations would occasionally touch on Thomas Cranmer

British Library catalogue search page displaying the new main catalogue, designed to make finding and requesting published items easier.

We’re excited to share our new main catalogue, making it easier for you to find and request the majority of our published collection. We’ve also launched an interim version of our Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. Find out how to start searching and requesting on our website bit.ly/BLNewCatalogues

Person viewing an exhibition related to Jane Austen, featuring displays of historical clothing and documents.

Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today ✨

Our new display, Dancing with Austen, explores how dance shaped her social world and drove the plots of her novels.

Now on display at the Weston Library.

#JaneAusten

All sensible advice!

Thanks. It isn't always just the decision of the publisher. Some research funding, e.g. that from UKRI orgs like AHRC, obliges grantees to publish digital versions of outputs as Open Access, with authors sometimes paying processing fees. However, the OA obligation does not extend to print

Welcoming a spectacular crowd today for the first day of Fantastic Futures 2025: AI Everywhere, All at Once! Online registrations are open throughout the next two days so if you couldn't make it in person, register to access the livestream! #ai4lam #ff2025 www.conftool.org/fantastic-fu...

Having investigated further, the work is part of a series; some academic libraries might wish to acquire all volumes in the same format, or they might already have a (print) subscription. The pricing is probably dictated by it being part of that series

It may seem absurd - and £92 is fairly steep - but there may be some markets where purchasing a hard copy is still preferred, e.g. academic libraries. I don't know how popular these options are IRL, but they provide the means to develop a collection without relying in perpetuity on third-parties

Basement adventures showed me why ChatGPT can only ever be garbage. In The British Library. Photo by Surekha Davies. Hallo readers, First, a news flash: Join me for a virtual book launch for HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY...

LLM-based gen AI for writing, audio, art, and video are "digital vultures bloated on stolen books [and other human-made things] which they churn together and vomit out in imitations of words from actual thinking, feeling brains."

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

Online tickets are now available for the Fantastic Futures 2025 conference! #FF2025 is the annual conference of the AI4LAM community, jam-packed with inspiration and practical lessons for AI in GLAMs. Sign up to watch all talks on Thurs and Fri Dec 4 - 5 for free! www.conftool.org/fantastic-fu...

Display case in the British Library Treasures Gallery showing Jane Austen's manuscripts and printed editions.

We installed a new Jane Austen display case in time for Jane's 250th birthday in December. The display is available in the Treasures Gallery (free) at the British Library in London until 15 March 2026. Blogpost: www.bl.uk/stories/blog...

According to this page, the BNA should be available in the BL's reading rooms if you have an account: bl.libguides.com/reference-se...

I failed to book tickets for Notre Dame the day previous to our planned visit, and I began to despair. However, some more timeslots became available via the app in the morning. And, on arrival, the non-ticket queues were long, but were moving quite steadily anyway (this was a weekday in early Sept)

There used to be a good many in Marzahn, and also along Landsberger Allee. Most of the latter, at least, now seem to have cladding

MS 'S.S. from R.G. May 6. '16'

cover of Over the Brazier by Robert Graves

If I had £10-15k... The copy of Over the Brazier that Robert Graves gave to Siegfried Sassoon on 6th May 1916 is being auctioned in two days' time.
www.forumauctions.co.uk/component/co...