(19 Mar 2024) The British Library’s computer systems were recently attacked by the notorious ransomware group Rhysida. The attack led to many of the Library’s core systems remaining unavailable for months and the auction of 573GB of employees’ personal data on Rhysida’s .onion site. Though the Library is slowly recovering and has admirably published their…
(4 Jan 2024) With over 170 million items in the collection, from Magna Carta to Shakespeare’s First Folio, the British Library is one of the world’s largest national libraries. If you are a mid-career library or archive professional, you’re welcomed to apply for the fourth International Library Leaders Programme, running in July 2024. This intensive week-long…
Loss of access to EThOS archive of 600,000 doctoral dissertations causes major disruption for PhD students (4 Dec 2023) PhD students have described “stumbling through” their research after losing access to the UK’s national database of doctoral theses, as disruption to the British Library’s digital archive following a devastating cyberattack enters its third month. The UK’s national library has…
(29 Nov 2023) The British Library has told customers that their personal data may have been stolen during a recent ransomware attack that knocked the library’s systems and website offline for the past month. In a notice sent to customers this week, which TechCrunch has seen, the British Library said that its customer relation…
(14 Aug 2023) Although the Vietnamese collection at the British Library (BL) in the UK is quite small, it’s actually very important, showing that the relations between the two countries had shaped long before their official diplomatic relations were set up in 1973, according to Dr. Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asia at…
(20 Jan 2023) The British Library will be running a week-long intensive professional development course for mid-career library and archive professionals on 12-19 July 2023. The International Library Leaders Programme offers a unique opportunity to go behind the scenes at one of the world’s largest national libraries, with workshops, talks and tours given by senior staff…
(6 Dec 2022) The British Library will be running a week-long intensive professional development course for mid-career library and archive professionals, 12-19 July 2023. The International Library Leaders Programme offers a unique opportunity to go behind the scenes at one of the world’s largest national libraries, with workshops, talks and tours given by senior staff from…
(30 Sep 2022) Applications for the Chevening Fellowship 2023-2024 “Shan Collections at the British Library” are still open until 1 November 2022 for individuals from Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand who are fluent in Shan language and able to read a variety of Shan scripts, including Old Shan. This 12-month fellowship will be hosted…
(12 Sep 2022) Sixteen works have become the first Chinese web novels to be included in the British Library, one of the world’s largest academic libraries. The works now in the library’s Asian & African collections are My Heroic Husband, Up in Heaven, The Era of the Earth, The First Order, Great Power, Heavy Industry, Great Doctor Ling Ran, Good Spring Time, The Wisdom…
(11 Nov 2021) Since 29 September, to support and guide the management of its collection, the Library has adopted a new persistent identifier policy. A persistent identifier or PID is a long lasting digital reference to an entity whether it is physical or digital. PIDs are a core component in providing reliable, long-term access to…