Get in touch to tell us how your heritage sector organisation is already using, or would like to use, AI. We’re seeking contributions of 300-500 words. Express interest to our Newsletter Editors, Katherine ([email protected]) and Jane ([email protected]) by 6th March.

It's #MastheadMonday again, & today we're featuring The Bee-Hive (1861-1878), an important trades-union publication. It fought for improved workers rights, but became embroiled in the fractious politics of the trades-union movement. Free to view here: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/beehive

The LIBER AI Taskforce has launched a series of short seminars! Friday's first seminar is very much a listening exercise to learn where European research libraries are with AI in libraries from participants libereurope.eu/article/libe... #AI4LAM

Does your Friday need a burst of inspiration? Try @arnicas.bsky.social's 'Image Prompt Inspiration: 3 random nouns and CC images from Flickr (British Library scans as default)' (yay for open access images!) ghostweather.com/apps/flickr-...

Our Flickr images live on, still creating delight and wonder!

The 2026 Winter Olympics are underway in Italy where 2,900 athletes from 92 National Olympic Committees will take part in Alpine skiing, curling, ice hockey and more. Find out how you can help preserve web content for this historic event here: link.bl.uk/7yj #Olympics @netpreserve.bsky.social

Is your research related to Asia or Africa? Join us on Friday 27 February for an open day exploring our Asian and African collections as well as those of @soasuni.bsky.social , @sas-news.bsky.social and @senatehouselib.bsky.social Book your place here: link.bl.uk/ctf

Despite recent challenges, our UK Web Archive team remains dedicated to safeguarding the nation’s online heritage. Find out more about UK Web Archive recovery in this latest blog post here: link.bl.uk/aaq

To celebrate the BNA reaching 100 million pages, my colleague Claire O'Halloran has written a blog sharing some of our highlights. A huge achievement-well done to everyone involved at @britishlibrary.bsky.social & @findmypast.bsky.social Here’s to the next 100 million! www.bl.uk/stories/blog...

💠 Meet our #RLUK26 Keynote 🎙️ Dr Carla Hayden was 14th Librarian of Congress, 1st woman & African American to lead LoC. Dr Hayden is currently Senior Fellow @mellon.org advising on opportunities to support + advance libraries & archives #RLUK26 is a virtual event on 25-26 March ℹ️ 🎟 bit.ly/RLUKconf

There are only three weeks left to apply for the International Fellowships 2026 programme. The scheme allows early career, international researchers to collaborate on a project with a UK partner. Learn more and apply now: https://bit.ly/3LaMIBC

8 years ago, at the British Library, I first saw this map: an FT reader competition to predict the boundaries of Europe after WW1. I made a note to find out more one day - which ultimately led me last month to this tomb in West Norwood cemetery. You can read more here: www.ft.com/content/79a4...

#MastheadMonday is back with the Illustrated London Life, which lasted only 23 issues (Apr-Aug 1843). It was 1 of many attempts to capitalise on the success of the Illustrated London News (1842-2003). Digitised by the British Library & free-to-view: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/illus...

Today the British Newspaer Archive reached 100 million pages! What an epic achievement! So many interesting pages to explore. And we’re not stopping there the BL & FMP will continue to digitise, so here’s to the next 100 million! blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2026/02/16/c...

Touching tribute to Paul Ayris. The UK open research community owes him a great debt. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

1/ The Endangered Archives Programme out of British Library provides guidelines that contain "hints, advice and experiences from people who have completed projects everywhere around the globe from Latin America to Africa to Asia." www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...

ATBL making our Bluesky debut to say: JOIN US March 9th and support @britishlibrary.bsky.social! #medievalmanuscripts, scholarly presentations, community, & more, @nysoclib.bsky.social. Tickets are $150 and will help digitize BL #medieval manuscripts. @bldigischol.bsky.social RSVP: tinyurl.com/44

I'm co-supervising a PhD placement on 'War Poetry in the Manuscript Collections: Cataloguing, Discovery and Outreach'. Please have a look at the project profiles and share this with any PhD students who may be interested in applying (by 27 February).

Apply for our PhD placement scheme to get involved in extraordinary research at the Library. There are eight available placements exploring a variety of themes including war poetry, 21st-century digital tools, illustrated newspapers and decarbonisation. Find out more: link.bl.uk/PhDPlacements

New year, new postdoctoral fellowship! Be our next Visiting Research Fellow in Sustainability & Environment (£10k bursary, P/T, flexible, Apr-Oct 26). Applications invited from arts and humanities researchers within 10yr of PhD. Deadline 9 Feb noon. For more information: www.bl.uk/services/res...

'Elgar's letters and digital tools' 3 month (or p/t equivalent) PhD Placement opportunity at the British Library, deadline 27 Feb: www.bl.uk/services/res... @britishlibrary.bsky.social @discoxford.bsky.social @oxmusicfaculty.bsky.social @tmusicology.bsky.social @rmastudents.bsky.social

Important! AHRC is looking for a new Executive Chair. A critical role for arts and humanities. £160k - £170k. Please share widely to help get the best possible field! fa-evzn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Booking now open for 'Climate Resilience in the Cultural Sector' @britishlibrary.bsky.social Friday 6 March 9-5pm. For a day specifically for the culture sector to explore ways to boost climate resilience and protect our heritage! www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-re... #ClimateChange

It is a huge pleasure to report that the LSE now has an excellent research repository with great search facilities at the brand new LSE Research Online. At long last LSERO is suitable for a world-leading social science university. researchonline.lse.ac.uk Many congratulations to LSE Library staff.

[NEW REPORT] International Metadata Recommendations and Platform-Specific Requirements for Open Access Books and Chapters Read more on our website 👉 buff.ly/6Ab7hhf @cilipmdg.bsky.social @uksg.bsky.social @oipassoc.bsky.social @operaseu.bsky.social Photo: Jon Snobri via Unsplash

British Library placements for doctoral students at UK universities: www.bl.uk/services/res... Good opportunity to spend focused months at the BL. One of these is 'Describing the British Library’s Illustrated and Illuminated Incunabula'! Deadline's 27 February.

Even while the UK Web Archive’s public site is offline, the work hasn’t stopped. Behind the scenes, teams are still collecting, preserving, and building new collections to safeguard the UK’s digital history. 💻 www.bl.uk/stories/blog... #WebArchiving #UKWebArchive #UKLegalDeposit

Your semi-regular reminder that the British Library's Research Repository has stacks of open datasets from collections, and research by Library staff e.g. bl.iro.bl.uk/catalog?f[hu... #OpenAccess #OpenGLAM

Fantastic Futures 2025 seems like a distant memory, which makes it even more enjoyable to read this blog post and recall brilliant papers and inspiring interactions. Slides, posters and recordings now available! www.bl.uk/stories/blog... #ff2025 @britishlibrary.bsky.social @bldigischol.bsky.social

Ignore a lot of the nonsense hype about AI, it’s fora like this which are thinking about use cases which may prove to be genuinely useful. Handwritten Text Recognition Document parsing and Named Entity Recognition. etc Properly applied, deep learning can potentially be a great help to archivists

In December, hundreds of library, museum, archive and research staff gathered at the British Library to share the state of the art in AI research for cultural heritage. Find out more: https://www.bl.uk/stories/blogs/posts/fantastic-futures-2025-highlights-and-resources #AI4LAM

Some of these posts will include work with the Digital Research team, and all collaborative PhD and placement students can attend our internal training talks, hack & yacks, reading groups and workshops!

Our latest PhD Placement opportunities - come and work at the British Library for 3-6 months to develop your research and professional skills. 8 projects available, deadline for applications 27 February. www.bl.uk/services/res...

Hello, my first post! I'm the writer Richard Price, with poetry collections which include Lucky Day and Late Gifts, and the novella The Island, which will be reissued this year in April. I'm also writing a memoir of the British Library where I worked as a curator of contemporary British books.

Have you completed a PhD in the last 10 years? Applications are open for our Postdoctoral Visiting Fellowship in Sustainability and Environment. Funding covers an £8000 bursary for part-time (0.5) research over 8 months, plus travel expenses. Apply by Monday 9 February. link.bl.uk/VisitingFellowship

Coming soon…Story Explorers in Leeds 🚀 🐯 🌊 Our popular Story Explorers exhibition is launching off to Leeds Central Library. Explore imaginary worlds in this free, playful family experience. Find out more here: link.bl.uk/gpg

This is Winnie the Harris hawk. She comes to the British Library twice a week to scare away the pigeons.

After an extensive consultation, I'm delighted to see CILIP's 2026-30 strategy Empowering Impact published www.cilip.org.uk/page/empower... feedback and ideas for how we can deliver it together v. welcome. Thanks to all those who inputted.

For Art History academics: Our Art History Active Learning Toolkit has been updated. Designed for university teaching, it offers practical activities that help students engage with art history beyond the traditional classroom. Download here: https://loom.ly/kSzADS0

Британская библиотека (British Library) в 2013 году выложила во Flickr отсканированные страницы из книг 17–19 веков Среди них — карты, геологические диаграммы, красивые иллюстрации, сатира, письма и многое другое www.flickr.com/photos/briti...

Free event at the British Library on Monday 9 Feb (18.30 GMT): ‘Web archive research in an age of Smart Data’

Dear Digital Humanists, you are all invited to the EADH 2026 Conference! We are meeting in September, in Kraków, Poland. Mark the important dates in your calendars: 📆 8.02: submission deadline 📆 15-19.09: the conference Read more: eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl ✈️ See you in Kraków?

A Bluesky challenge! We've got so many great heritage/GLAM accounts here now, that some are flying under the radar From national organisations to niche collections, these active accounts are all (at time of posting) under 500 followers-lowest at 9-how many can we get over 500? go.bsky.app/U16Nwsw

'Twas the night before Christmas And all through the house Not a creature was stirring - Not even a mouse... Because everyone was watching talks from the 2025 Fantastic Futures #FF2025 conference! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Two days of talks on AI and machine learning in GLAMS #AI4LAM #FF2025

One of the highlights of Fantastic Futures 2025

Apply to be the 2026-7 Munby Fellow in bibliography and history of the book @theul.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPZ688/m...

So sad to learn of death of Paul Ayris - a passionate, enthusiastic, encouraging and supportive advocate for #OpenAccess. The force behind the establishment of #UCLPress and the OAI Conferences, and of #OA policies at individual HEI and national funder level. RIP Paul. www.leru.org/news/in-memo...

One of the highlights of Fantastic Futures 2025

The British Library is hosting a free event on 9 Feb, 18:30: Web Archive Research in an Age of Smart Data. Hear from Emmanouil Tranos, Thom Vaughan, Dr Andrea Kocsis, and Cameron Huggett. Chair: Jane Winters. 📍Location: BL Knowledge Centre, London. events.bl.uk/events/web-a...

Want to level up your library career this year? We’re looking for international mid-career library and archive professionals to join us this summer at our International Library Leaders Programme. Learn more link.bl.uk/ILLP2026