British Library blogs

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These blogs express the thoughts and opinions of individual British Library staff members. You can subscribe to any blog by email.

Latest posts

A medieval guide to predicting your future

20 August 2019 Medieval manuscripts

How can you predict the future, interpret your dreams, and protect yourself against harm? Some of the manuscripts digitised for The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project have the answer. Many medieval manuscripts include charms, which seek to influence events...

Recording of the week: securing the right to read

19 August 2019 Sound and vision

This week's selection comes from Josie Wales, Rights Clearance Officer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. Along with many other libraries around the world, the British Library celebrated LGBTQ+ Pride this summer, with staff from St Pancras and Boston Spa joining...

“That was our place.” - The Cambridge of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

17 August 2019 English and Drama

by guest blogger Di Beddow, PhD student at Queen Mary, University of London, researching Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath in Cambridge. The notebook containing the Hughes poem 'Cambridge Was Our Courtship' (Add MS 88918/1/2) is currently on display in the...

‘C’est un détournement’: Mezioud Ouldamer’s copy of Guy Debord and Asger Jorn’s Mémoires

16 August 2019 European studies

In 1959 Guy Debord and the Danish artist Asger Jorn published Mémoires, ‘a work entirely composed of prefabricated elements’ with ‘supporting structures’ by Jorn. In the jargon of the Situationist International (SI), the avant-garde anti-authoritarian movement they helped form in...