Every year the British Library offers a number of PhD research placements and in this blog Suzy Lawrence, a PhD Placement Researcher, shares her research insights and recommendations. In June, Suzy started her placement as part of the LibraryOn team to explore existing collaborations between university and public libraries across the UK.

LibraryOn is the new name for the Single Digital Presence, an online platform led by the British Library and funded by Arts Council England that will connect people with their local libraries and celebrate what public libraries offer (see LibraryOn). This research has explored options for the future by considering how LibraryOn might help to bring university and public libraries closer together for the benefit of their users.

Benefits of collaboration

It was clear from the beginning of the placement that the term ‘collaboration’ is used very broadly to cover a wide range of joint activities. In the library sector, these can vary from skill sharing groups, to cooperative single projects and campaigns, to allowing ongoing access to each other’s library spaces and books, to fully collaborative joint library spaces, such as The Hive in Worcester.

As part of the research, a wide range of librarians from different libraries were consulted, many of whom had been involved in such projects. It was striking how helpful everyone was and how generous with their time. Such conversations also revealed a widely held belief that working together across the library sector can bring real benefits for everyone involved.

For public libraries, the benefits include the opportunity to share resources, such as skills, personnel and physical space. There is also a desire to broaden the user base of public libraries and to increase footfall, particularly among teenagers and people in their twenties who are not frequent library users.

For university libraries, the opportunity to share resources also appeals but an equally important motivation is the desire to connect with local communities and to allow access to knowledge on a more equitable basis.

The Hive in Worcester, a notable example of a fully collaborative joint library space.

Barriers to collaboration

While there are many motivations that bring public and university libraries together, there are also some barriers that can prevent collaborations from taking place.

One of the most important is that while public libraries aim to serve the general community, university libraries have to prioritise their student body. This different focus can make it hard to find a project that benefits all the users of both libraries.

Other issues include the different resources available to public and university libraries, which can make it hard to form equal partnerships, and the surprising difficulty in finding the right person to contact at each organisation.

How can LibraryOn help?

Whilst LibraryOn is currently focused on public libraries, the team is conscious of the wider library ecosystem and how LibraryOn might be able to support greater connections within it. As a communicative and connective space, there is great potential in the future for LibraryOn to help bring different libraries together – whether that be to share resources, ideas, skills or technology – which could then lead on to further collaborative projects outside of the platform.

In addition, the ultimate aim of the work is to increase usage of public libraries, and helping to develop collaborations with other types of libraries is certainly a promising way to do so.

Interested in hearing more? Sign up to LibraryOn newsletter to receive updates on the project by emailing the team at [email protected]

Visit British Library PhD Placement Scheme for more detail about PhD placement opportunities.

Suzy Lawrence

LibraryOn PhD Placement Researcher

 

As 2022 comes to a close, we’re taking some time to look back at an incredible year here at the Library. Here’s eight of our favourite moments, all thanks to our users, staff, and community, locally and globally.

A literary treasure trove saved

This year we celebrated the acquisition of the incredible Blavatnik Honresfield Library. Formed in the second half of the 19^th century, it’s a collection of manuscripts and printed books which includes exceptional material by the Brontës, Jane Austen, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

For the last 80 years, the collection has been owned privately, and was largely inaccessible. That is until the Friends of the National Libraries enabled it to be purchased for the nation, with its contents distributed between libraries and museums across the UK, including the British Library, accessible to all.

Earlier in December, we celebrated with the screening of a brand new film revealing the contents of the collection and the story of its acquisition. Don’t worry if you missed it – keep your eyes peeled on our social media channels early next year, when we’ll be releasing highlights for everyone to see. 

Lindisfarne Gospels at the Laing Art Gallery

Long celebrated as the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England, the Lindisfarne Gospels – created c. 700 – represent a remarkable artistic achievement.

This year the Gospels featured in an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, in the region of its island of origin. Newcastle City Library also put on a supporting exhibition, and venues across the North East hosted events inspired by the magnificent manuscript.

The exhibition has now ended, but you can still explore the Gospels for yourself online in our digitised version. If you find yourself yearning to learn more, you can grab The Lindisfarne Gospels: Art, History & Inspiration from our shop – one of our best-selling titles of 2022, written by curator Eleanor Jackson. 

The Lindisfarne Gospels will soon be back on display in our Treasures gallery.

Food Means Home

Photo by Nicola Fox

For those newly arrived in the UK, adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings can feel daunting. With an idea to help comfort young people from around the world who now live in Leeds, we worked with a group of talented individuals to recreate some of their favourite dishes and share them in a new recipe book: Cooked with Love: World recipes without borders.

Cooked with Love was gifted to foster families at Leeds Civic Hall in November, as well as presented to His Majesty King Charles III when he visited the city.

‘Sharing in this way has opened a window into our young people’s lives before they arrived in the UK. We have all learned so much; from recipes to heart-warming stories from back home and life lessons for us all.’ – Louise Sidibe, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children Lead for Leeds.

 

10^th anniversary of the National Network

In November our Business & IP Centre (BIPC)’s National Network celebrated its 10^th anniversary.

Partnering with local libraries across the UK, the National Network helps ideas grow into successful businesses through free resources, training and events. In the 10 years since its launch the National Network has:

• partnered with 21 libraries around the UK
• attracted over 185,000 people to events, workshops and webinars
• helped create over 19,000 business and 12,000 jobs
• supported more than 10,000 existing business
• helped safeguard 4,000 existing businesses.

Find out more about how the BIPC can bring business inspiration and support to you.

 

Books Without Borders

This summer we hosted a special event to mark the launch of Books Without Borders – an initiative by the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, to print and distribute 16,000 books for newly arrived children and families displaced by the war.

Our Learning team welcomed 40 children and their families to our Learning Centre, leading a range of fun activities. But a surprise was in store. The First Lady joined on screen live from Kyiv to read an excerpt of Stories on the 14^th Track, one of the many Ukrainian children’s books included in the Books Without Borders project.

‘Books not only entertain and educate us – they also unite us and bring us back to a feeling of home. This project is our victory on the cultural front, and it brings our primary victory closer.’ – First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska.

 

Green Libraries Manifesto

Back in July we launched the Green Libraries Manifesto – the next stage in stepping up the shared effort of libraries to tackle the climate emergency and protect our planet.

By signing the manifesto, libraries commit to a set of common principles: to put sustainability at the heart of their work and planning, to embrace innovation, to grow and share knowledge, and to support young people in becoming climate leaders. So far over 50 libraries have signed up to the commitments from across the UK and further afield in Mexico and Ghana.

We’re committed to working across the sector to help build a brighter climate future. That includes making changes to the way we work too.  Making improvements to our buildings to reduce our own carbon emissions, supporting colleagues to initiate sustainable change across the Library through a staff-led Sustainability Group, and supporting our users in researching and contributing to positive climate action.

Find out more about the Green Libraries Partnership.

 

Somers Town Festival

In July our Piazza was once again host to the Somers Town Festival – Camden’s largest street party.

Local talent took to the stage, from Afro Beats/Cuban fusion musicians Lokkhi Terra, to Scottish folk singer-songwriter Stagg. Other celebrators included local humanist and mental health choirs, youth groups, storytellers, traditional dancers and, of course, a fantastic array of world foods, all from the Camden community.

Watch our video to get a taste of the Festival – and maybe we’ll see you there next year!

Last, but far from least - our exhibitions!

We’ve had a brilliant run of exhibitions this year – not just in London, but in Leeds, across the UK, and across the globe as well.

Starting off in spring with Breaking the News, pop-up displays opened at 30 public libraries across the UK ahead of our main exhibition opening at St Pancras in April. It was our first major exhibition to spotlight the role that news plays in our society, including an original BBC radio script of the D-Day landings and the destroyed hard-drives used by The Guardian to store Edward Snowden’s leaked files.

Gold opened in May, exploring how this precious metal has been used to embellish and enhance the written word across cultures, faiths and time. An exhibition celebrating the lasting impact of Chinese communities in the UK, Chinese and British, followed in November, currently open alongside Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth: the first exhibition to traverse the rich history and storytelling surrounding one of the most famous figures of the ancient world.

At the Leeds Art Gallery, artist Jill McKnight explored how the people of Leeds have represented themselves over time in her exhibition Desire Lines, in collaboration with our collections. Living with Machines is currently open at Leeds City Museum until January, shedding fresh light on the Industrial Revolution and how advances in technology impacted the lives of ordinary people.

We’ve been globe-trotting too. Alice in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole, an exhibition originally hosted in St Pancras in 2015, is currently open at Shanghai Library East, China. Our Chief Executive, Roly Keating, recently made the trip to Mumbai to open a wonderful co-curated exhibition, Early Photography and Archaeology in Western India, showcasing for the first time some of the rarest, earliest and most striking photographs and objects of India’s archaeological heritage.

We could go on – but it would take an entire blog post of itself! Check out what’s on if you’re interested in seeing our current exhibitions, and find out what we have planned for 2023.

 

Here’s to 50 years

As we approach 2023, we’re getting ready to celebrate 50 years of the British Library since we began operations in July 1973. A massive thank you to everyone who uses the Library and our collection in so many wonderful, creative ways, for making our 49^th year, and all the years before that, so brilliant. Have a relaxing and safe Christmas, and a happy New Year! 

 

A Doctoral Open Day attendee and a curator looking at a collection item during  a ‘show and tell’ session.

Earlier this year, we celebrated our 15th season of Doctoral Open Days (DODs). These annual events are designed to introduce first year PhD students from across the UK and beyond to using our collection and resources in their doctoral research. The ways that we’ve run these events has shifted over the years, and as we start to plan season 16, we’re looking to reshape our DODs again.

For the first decade, DODs were several day-long events at our St Pancras site in London, each focused on broad subject, geographical and chronological areas. In 2017, we added an event at our Boston Spa site to our annual programme. The Boston Spa event offered a broad introduction to our collection, and particularly to the resources available in our Reading Room in Yorkshire.

Attendees at a Doctoral Open Day walking towards the main entrance of the British Library’s St Pancras site.

The last time we ran the series in this format was at the beginning of 2020. The final event of the season was the Americas day on 28 February, just a couple of weeks before the first lockdown.

In 2021, we pivoted to an online offer, with eight weekly half-day webinars. The series included an introductory module focused on the practicalities of finding resources in our catalogues, and seven sessions exploring areas of our collection in more detail.

This year, we ran a similar series of webinars, and we were also able to offer four orientation sessions at our St Pancras site. The events focused on practicalities of getting set up as readers and navigating the building. Our reference team hosted a surgery-style drop-in to help attendees get to grips with searching our catalogues. We also had ‘Show and Tell’ sessions where some of our curators offered attendees a glimpse of items from our vast and varied collection, and our conservation team demonstrated how to handle collection items safely.

It was great to welcome PhD students for in-person DODs again. For many attendees, this was the first time they had visited the Library. We were delighted that 100% attendees that responded to our feedback survey felt that the event met its aim to offer a practical introduction to our St Pancras site.

At the same time, attendance numbers and audience feedback show that an online offer makes it easier for more students to attend one or more sessions. Lots of PhD topics don’t fit neatly into one of the broad thematic areas of the events, and the online modules make it easier for students to pick and mix relevant sessions.

Feedback from both attendees and Library colleagues involved in these events tell us that a mixture of online and on-site sessions will be the right approach for the DODs in future years.

A member of the Library’s conservation team showing students a book model.

After 15 years of DODs, thirteen on-site seasons, one online series and one hybrid programme, it’s a good time to reflect on what that mixture looks like for future seasons.

If you’re starting a PhD next academic year and are interested in attending our 2023 DODs, keep your eyes on the Research Collaboration webspace for news of the next series. You can also sign up to our quarterly research e-news to receive details of our research events, opportunities and stories of research at the Library. Request to join the mailing list by emailing [email protected]

We look forward to seeing you next year!

Naomi Billingsley

Interim Head of Research Development