BL Digitisation

Good morning! 👋 We’re here at the Museums and Heritage Show today and tomorrow at stand N6 at Olympia, London. Come and say hello and see how our experts can help you preserve your own archives, or find out how you can order images from the @britishlibrary collection. 📜

We’d like to thank you for your patience and understanding during this challenging period, following the major technology outage caused by a cyber-attack – it is much appreciated. We’re working as quickly as possible to safely restore our services, both onsite and online. Our buildings remain fully open, including our exhibitions Fantasy: Realms of Imagination and Malorie Blackman: The Power of Stories. Wi-Fi is available at both sites, and we can take card payments onsite at St Pancras. We’re actively updating our blog with alternative research resources as they become available: bit.ly/BLCyberUpdateD… We’re continuing to work closely with cybersecurity specialists to examine the extent of the cyber-attack and will provide regular updates. The NCSC offers valuable advice on maintaining online security: bit.ly/BLNCSC Thank you for your ongoing support. We’ll share further updates as soon as we can.

Whilst you're waiting to access our marvellous content on our website, please head to our Sketchfab account here to see 3D globes and manuscripts. sketchfab.com/britishlibrary

We’re experiencing a major technology outage as a result of a cyber incident. This is affecting our website, online systems and services, and some onsite services including public Wi-Fi. We’re currently investigating the incident with @NCSC and other specialists. The Library’s buildings remain fully open and the following services are available onsite: · Reading Rooms (for personal study) · any collection items ordered on or before 26 October · very limited, manual collection item ordering in London via our printed catalogues, for items stored in St Pancras only. If you have tickets to Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, you’ll still be able to use them. You can also buy tickets onsite but we can only accept cash. We know that you may have questions, but please bear with us while we gather more information. We’ll update as regularly as we can.

We're still experiencing a technology outage, affecting all our technology services including our website, phone lines, and services on site in London and Yorkshire.  Our Reading Rooms will be open for personal study but with very limited access to collection items and no access to digital collections or our digital catalogue. Reader Registration is also unavailable. Our Fantasy exhibition and public spaces will open as normal and our public events will be going ahead as planned, but we are only able to take cash payment on site. We're working to fix this as quickly as possible and will update when we can.

In addition to our Chaucer manuscripts, we've also #FullyDigitised some early printed copies of the Canterbury Tales, like G.11588 access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ar… @BLprintheritage

A little dragon watches over the beginning of 'The Assumption of our Lady' in a collection of Middle English verse including short poems by Geoffrey Chaucer #FullyDigitised in #IIIF by @BLMedieval @BL_Digitisation and @BL_MadeDigital Add MS 36983, f. 149r access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ar…

Chaucer goes digital as British Library makes works available online theguardian.com/books/2023/oct…

Over 60 collection items and 25000 digital images! All of our manuscripts of Chaucer's works are now available online. Read today's blogpost to learn more! blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus… #Chaucer

We're delighted to announce that all of our pre-1600 manuscripts of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer have now been digitised! Check out today's blogpost for a full list of all the manuscripts and links to the images: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus… #Chaucer

📢All of the British Library's pre-1600 manuscript and printed copies of Chaucer's works are now online and free to view📢 Chaucer is the author of the Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest works of medieval literature. Read more here: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…

Into jam making? Try this 18c recipe for plum jam from a digitised BL book. access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ar…

Come work with us! Digital Curator, OCR/HTR @britishlibrary Join the Heritage Made Digital team to further improve the access & usability of our digital collections by integrating a standardised OCR & HTR production process into our existing workflows. buff.ly/404NmUe

Just a line from 1720 years ago : "Dear Dad, please try your best to find my copy of a letter to the council, I can't find it anywhere here." Letter from a son to his dad @BLMedieval Papyrus 1270

How long does it take to rebind a book? 📕 You might remember Roger, one of our talented conservators (affectionately nicknamed ‘the Book Doctor’) from a video post a few months ago. Join him again as he shares how he’s ‘bringing items back to life’: bit.ly/46KcYYx

Weighing in at over 10kg and comprising almost 1000 pages, one of the largest (and heaviest!) of the Greek manuscripts in our collections has just been digitised! Learn more than about the story of this remarkable manuscript in today's blogpost: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…

Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay2023 . I love the title of this book, #v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">books.google.co.uk/books?id=MEpWA… and the binding design by William Ralston (WR) isn't bad either! bl.uk/catalogues/boo…

Say hi to Peter today, to see how British Library Digitisation Services can help you with your archives or access the national collection held at the @britishlibrary

Recently we helped @jeadiewhisky digitise articles and photographs from our collection to recreate an anthology of the distilleries of Great Britain and Ireland. bl.uk/case-studies/r…

Delighted to be joining @BritRecs Conference today! Looking forward to hear how records of the drinks industry in the UK have been brought to life! #BRECS23