Libraries

 After the ransomware attack in October 2023, the British Library is still hurting. Online services were down for months, personal data was released to the public, and their databases needed scanning for remaining viruses and malware - a process that is still happening, with 6 billion files scanned so far. The next step for the institution has now been stated: they need their website rebuilt and they've issued a £400,000 tender for contractors to make it happen. Hopefully, this will be a step towards a safe and reliable system for the British Library.

Read more about rebuilding here.
Read more about the effects of the attack here.

Spellow Hub in Liverpool is a library that had a radical makeover only last March to become a community hub for Liverpool, providing a range of services. The library supported training and support programs for the unemployed, provided services for enterprise businesses, and had free to use 'smart' classrooms. It was intended to be a one-stop-shop for support, providing invaluable services to the community around it, but was set on fire during the recent riots.

It has been reported that rioters attempted to stop firefighters from even reaching the library to extinguish the flames, throwing items at the fire engine as it arrived. The library suffered severe fire damage to the ground floor and has been closed since the event. Thankfully, some good news has arisen - a fundraiser set up to aid repairs in the library has raised more than £120,000. 

Read more about the library attack here.
Read more about the library services here.

 The Bookbanks charity has been distributing books at food banks in London and Norfolk. Charity founder Emily Rhodes that, “Nobody should have to choose whether to ‘feed or read’. By enabling the books industry to work closely with food banks, we can change this. Books are a powerful tool not just to improve literacy, but also to build relationships and create communities."

Bookbanks' website states that more than 1 in 12 UK children do not have a single book of their own - and they hope to change this statistic!

Read more about their mission statement here. 
Read more about their progress here.

Cambridge library has been digitising a fascinating collection of medieval manuscripts. While the manuscripts are largely medical recipe compilations and texts, they also include scientific, alchemical, legal, literary, liturgical and devotional books. Operating under the name “Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries,”; the collection is composed of over 186 manuscripts, 120 of which have now been photographed as part of the digitisation project.

The process of archiving these items has several steps; these can be simplified into conservation, cataloguing, digitisation, and transcription. First, any fragile papers are repaired, being sent to a separate team for this. Then the scripts are catalogued, being given an appropriately descriptive record in Cambridge’s system. The photographs of the manuscripts are taken, and the text itself is finally copied out as an accompaniment to the digitised photos.

This isn’t the first attempt at transcription for one of these manuscripts – the Victorian horror writer and noted scholar James Rhodes wrote the short story “The Experiment” based on a text from this collection. Describing the haunting events after his characters follow a necromantic ritual, he included his full transcription of the ritual used to summon the dead at the end of his story, noting that it could be found in Cambridge Library. Interestingly, his work has one small mistake that changes the ritual. He writes how you must ask permission from the angel Raphael as part of the spell – the true manuscript instead names the demon Azazel, giving a demonic slant to the events of the story. With the ongoing project, perhaps some new horror writers will find inspiration from these ancient pages. 

Read about James Rhodes’ work here.

Read about the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project here. 

Read the digitised Manuscripts here.