As The Last Word celebrates its first anniversary as a community hub, we’re looking back at a year that has redefined what it means to be a space for the community.

What is The Last Word?

Last December we transformed The Last Word from a café into a community hub. When we opened our doors we had a vision: to create more than just a gathering space. We wanted to build a bridge between our vast collection and the rich, diverse stories of our local community in Camden and Somers Town. Yes, visitors still occasionally mistake us for a café – but these days, they're more likely to stay for shared stories than a flat white!

Connecting through stories

Throughout the year, The Last Word has become a space for community creativity and connection. Every Thursday morning, it transforms into a magical realm as Kindle Corner fills it with butterfly costumes, bubbles and storytelling for our youngest visitors. Tuesday evenings see neighbours becoming friends over shared meals at Think & Do's Sharing Spaces, while C4WS's monthly Sunday Film Club has turned strangers into cinema buddies.

Collaborating with partners

But our work goes beyond hosting events – we're creating a living archive of community stories that complement the Library's collection. Age UK Camden made themselves at home for their monthly book club, engaging in lively conversation over unique and exciting titles. And our collaboration with Hopscotch Women’s Centre led to Our Unheard Journey, a display created in partnership with migrant women from Afghanistan, as part of Refugee Week. We've become a space where local organisations can showcase their work, where neighbours can launch their own projects, and where everyone's story is heard.

Looking to the future

What makes The Last Word special isn't just the activities we host or the resources we share – it's the way our community has embraced this space as their own. Whether you're exploring our archives, participating in a workshop, or simply stopping by for a chat, you're adding your chapter to our collective story.

As we blow out our first birthday candle, we're reminded that The Last Word is more than a community hub – it's a testament to the power of creating spaces where stories can be shared, connections can be forged, and community can thrive. Here's to many more years of weaving stories together!

If you’re local pop in to The Last Word and see how you can get involved. Or contact us at [email protected] – we’d love to hear from you.

Young Creators Lab is a pioneering digital content programme for 18 – 24 year olds at the British Library, generously supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. It gives young people a platform to create new content for our social media channels, sparking conversations inspired by our collection while also providing expert skills and training. And through this programme, we hope to empower other young people around the world to help them confront the global challenges we face today and in the future.

Discover some of the stories our young creators have uncovered so far

Kicking off in June 2024, Young Creators Lab welcomed our first cohort of talented young creators behind the scenes at the Library to make content inspired by our collection and summer exhibition, Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music.

From exploring the hidden significance of everyday objects such as stamps and the humble cardboard box, to tracing the evolution of music sampling and exploring the cross section of music and fashion, the group have showcased fascinating stories across a broad range of subjects, both for short films on TikTok and documentary style films for YouTube, which have been viewed over 450,000 times by audiences all over the world.

Highlights on TikTok

Young Creators Sanya and Elsie explore the story of Caribbean postal stamps, designed to celebrate the decriminalisation of carnival in the Islands.

@britishlibrary From royalty to rebellion – ever wondered about the history behind the humble postage stamp? ✉️ In the next of their series, our Young Creators Sanya and Elsie dive into Caribbean postal stamps, originally made to celebrate the decriminalisation of carnival in the Islands. Stay tuned as they uncover more hidden stories behind everyday objects! Young Creators Lab is a digital project for 18-24 year olds, supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. #britishlibrary #library #stamps #postagestamps #youngcreators #youngcreatorslab #carnival #caribbean ♬ Cat's life - kunee

Abraham, Christine and Joshua take us on a journey of music sampling, exploring how The Blackbyrds’ Mysterious Vibes has been sampled and interpolated by artists from the 1970s to today (part 1 of 3).

@britishlibrary Does this song sound familiar? 🎶 Explore the journey of the song ‘Mysterious Vibes’ by The Blackbyrds, from its funky 1977 origins to how it’s been sampled, remixed, and transformed today, with Young Creators Abraham, Christine and Joshua… Young Creators Lab is a digital project for 18-24 year olds, supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. #britishlibrary #library #youngcreators #youngcreatorslab #music #sampling #musictok ♬ original sound - British Library

See more on our TikTok channel @britishlibrary

"Young people have so much knowledge in what’s current, so using those skills coupled with the huge wealth of knowledge available to discover at the Library enabled us to bring these stories to light and help them reach new audiences." Sanya, Young Creator (2024)

Developing filmmakers Image

Next, our young creators dived deeper into our collection as we tasked them with creating documentary style films for YouTube, using archive items from our collection as a jumping off point. One group explored the life and legacy of African American dancer and activist Kathryn Dunham, who pioneered a new style fusing ballet with traditional Afro-Caribbean dances. Meanwhile, our second group examined original music scores by Beethoven, Schubert and Ethel Smyth, looking at how each piece of music had a profound impact on contemporary society and became anthems in their day.

Each group met with expert curators from our archives, before setting about storyboarding and scripting their documentaries. Our young creators then went to a professional film studio in London, courtesy of Chocolate Films, to record their documentaries. They also used our image database and stock footage to bring the films to life.

Lara, one of the creators on the programme, said initially her group found it challenging to approach the subject matter for a young, contemporary audience: “How can you make music written in the 19th century relevant to people 200 years later? The clue was in the stories told by the composers and the reception of it in its historical context… We realised that for audiences at the time, these pieces were not ‘classical’ – they were contemporary. The past is always influencing and connecting with the present in some way.” Lara, Young Creator (2024).

Celebrating creativity and connection

^{Keith Afadi, Muinat Abdul, Charlotte Horobin and Young Creators Christine and Natalie at the Young Creators Lab: Social Network event, October 2024. Photo by Chocolate Films.}

To celebrate the end of the first programme in October, we hosted a free event at the Library in St Pancras for young people to come and network and share ideas. The event featured film screenings of our Young Creators’ films, pop up creative stations and an insightful panel talk on the future of social media for emerging creatives, featuring content creators Keith Afadi and Muinat Abdul and our own Social Media Manager, Charlotte Horobin. Audiences tuned in from around the world on TikTok too!

"Engaging with heritage is crucial for young people because it helps us uncover our roots, understand the origin of things and learn why certain traditions and practices exist." DeMarkay, Young Creator (2024)

What’s next?

For many of the young people on the programme, Young Creators Lab has given them the inspiration, skills and confidence to start their own content series, find long-term collaborators and even perform on stage! We’ll be keeping a close eye on what they do next, and welcoming them back to the Library in the future.

Young Creators Lab will run again from January – April 2025, inspiring another group of 18 – 24 year olds to start new conversations online through the lens of our collection. If you’re interested in taking part then find out more. Applications are open from 9 December 2024 – 6 January 2025.

You can also email the team on [email protected] for more information.

Young Creators Lab is generously supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust

As the National Lottery celebrates 30 years this month, we’re reflecting on all the incredible ways its Heritage Fund has supported us in that time.

For almost as long as the charity has existed, the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) has been a driving force in our ability to conserve and expand our collections for future generations.

Without the generous support of the NLHF, many of our major acquisitions – from the Mercator Atlas (1997) to the whole Olivier Archive (2001) – would not have been possible. In 2005 its funding enabled the construction of our Conservation Centre and contributed millions towards the preservation, cataloguing and accessibility of our collections. In 2017 its significant funding allowed us to lead on a project to preserve over 350,000 endangered sound recordings.

We asked a few of our collection areas to tell us about some of the ways the Heritage Fund has supported them.

Sound archive

The earliest items in the Sound archive date all the way back to 1888, the very first years of sound recording in the country, and include a set of wax cylinders sent over from America by Thomas Edison.

These were sent to Colonel Gouraud, his UK representative, who used them to showcase Edison’s state-of-the-art phonograph invention and record the voices of the rich and famous of the day to create a ‘library of immortal voices’. These provide an invaluable window into the past, capturing sounds and voices that would otherwise be lost to history.

These rare wax cylinders are now incredibly fragile and are prone to cracks and deformation. This makes handling and contact replay for preservation difficult, and sometimes impossible. However with the NLHF’s generous support, the Sound archive has recently acquired an Endpoint cylinder machine – a state-of-the-art device designed to preserve historical audio recordings stored on phonograph ‘wax’ cylinders, using non-contact optical reading of the cylinder surface.

Watch our Audio Engineer Karl Jenkins describe how this invaluable tool is helping to safeguard our cultural heritage and ensure that the sounds of the past can be enjoyed for future generations.

Raffles Family Collection

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) is best known today for his role in the founding of a British settlement at Singapore in 1819.  Through his service in the East India Company, Raffles also served as British governor of Java and of Bengkulu in Sumatra, and during his time in Southeast Asia he collected manuscripts and natural history specimens and drawings.

In 2007 we acquired the Raffles Family Collection, which consisted of an important collection of Malay letters to Raffles as well as correspondence of the Raffles family, and over 200 drawings of birds and plants from Sumatra and Penang – with significant support from the NLHF. Most of Raffles’ natural history drawings have been digitised and you can find a selection on display in our Treasures Gallery.

Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) archive

Founded in 1813, the RPS aims to champion the vital role that music plays in all our lives and has built up a substantial archive which we acquired in 2002, thanks in part to a grant from the NHLF, alongside generous donations from other individuals and trusts. The archive contains over 270 scores, together with numerous letters and administrative documents that detail the organisation’s operations, including concert planning, finances and commissioned works.

Amongst many treasures in the archive, you’ll find a record of the RPS’s 1822 commission of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, with £50 offered for its completion. This item was displayed in 2021 during our exhibition Beethoven: Idealist. Innovator. Icon, together with the manuscript copy of the symphony that Beethoven sent to the RPS, known as the ‘London manuscript’.

Papers of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

In 2004 we acquired the papers of Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India, with assistance from the NLHF, The Friends of the British Library, The Friends of the National Libraries and The Lord Farringdon Charitable Trust.

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton (1831–1891), 1st Earl of Lytton, served as the Viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880. The collection covers the many aspects of his time in office, including Indian finances, new legislation and appointments to the Indian Civil Service. There are also papers on the more controversial aspects of this period, such as attempts to control Indian newspapers and the Government response to the great famine of 1876–1878.

Throughout the collection there is correspondence with a wide range of people in India and England, including British officials and politicians, and members of the British Royal family. The papers give a fascinating look into a crucial period in British and Indian history.

 

As a living library with over 170 million items, our collection is growing every day and this is something that has only been possible through the generosity of our funders such as NLHF.

We join the diverse range of organisations and charities also being supported by the Heritage Fund in wishing the National Lottery a wonderful 30th anniversary and thank them for the incredible impact they have allowed us to make.