We want to expand our reach and impact through our exciting and new projects, programmes and collaboration and welcome enquiries from anyone with an interest in supporting our international work.
The International purpose of the British Library is to ‘work with partners around the world to advance knowledge and mutual understanding’. We deliver this purpose via a series of international collaborations, partnerships, skills and knowledge exchanges projects and training with international partners.
We’re passionate about collaborating and supporting libraries and archives around the world. We want to expand our reach and impact through new projects, programmes and collaboration and welcome enquiries from anyone with an interest in supporting our work.
The global instability means that our commitment to support international partners who have collections at risk has proven, sadly, to be vital with the dangers caused by climate change increasing alongside the damages caused by conflicts and civil emergency.
We’re an international library that’s part of a global network of other unique institutions. Working side by side with these institutions is essential. It means we can learn from each other, promote a shared understanding of world history and culture, and make sure important collections are safe for future generations. What we learn through our work helps us grow professionally and develop our skills. And by sharing our knowledge with our network of partners, we help creative institutions to innovate and grow, both here in the UK and globally.
This is our flagship international leadership programme to help international librarians respond to their challenges and take the next step in their career. Since 2019, 123 international librarians participated in our training programme taking place every summer at the British Library. We would like to offer additional scholarships to support librarians from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean to take part in the programme.
The British Library is committed to work with international partners to create a more sustainable future. We aim to embed partnerships across the international library sector to support wider change, share and encourage climate action, best practice and learning. Through our skills exchange programmes, we work with institutions worldwide whose collections are at risk from climate change.
Our goal is to continue to support more libraries, archives and library workers around the world to protect their collections, support knowledge and mutual understanding and address urgent global issues. If you would like to support our work, we want to hear from you.
Please contact our Development team for more information or to discuss ways of supporting the International Office.
Email supporters@bl.uk.
