2025 at the British Library

Blog series Knowledge Matters blog

Read on to find out which of our exhibitions reached 800,000 people. Plus, visits from Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, the acquisition of five medieval manuscripts and other happenings here at the Library this year.

We restored catalogues for researchers

As the year comes to a close we’ve launched a new catalogue where you can search our collection, place requests and check the status of their orders in one place. You can also now search for archives, manuscripts and items in our visual arts collections using our interim Archives and Manuscripts catalogue.

We shared Unearthed: The Power of Gardening across the UK

Three million people in Britain began gardening for the first time in 2020. From May to August our exhibition Unearthed: The Power of Gardening explored the way this often overlooked activity can change lives. It featured historic manuscripts, artefacts and artworks alongside contemporary explorations of gardening.

We shared the exhibition widely through our Living Knowledge Network, a partnership between public and national libraries in the UK. More than 80 public libraries across the UK presented displays based on the exhibition. These displays, and events related to Unearthed, reached over 800,000 people. Unearthed had an extraordinary impact. Eighty-five percent of the libraries in the network planned new green initiatives. They hosted over 370 events and activities in response to the exhibition, including seed banks, nature walks and growing their own gardens.

The exhibition was supported by a donation made in memory of Melvin R Seiden, with thanks to Stanley Smith (UK) Horticultural Trust for additional support.

We reunited the Thursday Murder Club for one spectacular evening

In Richard Osman’s bestselling novel, four inhabitants of a luxury retirement village meet every Thursday to discuss unsolved murders – then find themselves with a recent crime on their hands.

When Netflix released the film adaptation in August, we welcomed audiences to an event about how the movie was made. Osman, director Chris Columbus, and stars Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie and Ben Kingsley shared behind-the-scenes insights into the process.

What makes club leader Elizabeth so enigmatic? How did Pierce Brosnan tackle a fan-favourite character? Watch our interviews with the movie’s stars online and find out more.

Our Young Creators broadcast stories about our collection

When young people explored our collection in 2025, what did they find? The 18–24-year-old participants in our Young Creators Lab saw their imaginations sparked by the lives and writing of activist Angela Davis, novelist Margaret Atwood, and trailblazing writer Una Marson.

The Young Creators created provocative social media stories based on their research. The films they made are showcased on our YouTube and TikTok channels and have now been viewed by over 800,000 people around the world.

We also launched our new Youth Collective who will help us reimagine how the Library looks, feels, and speaks to their generation. . Since we have over 170 million items in our collection, there are many more insightful creative projects to come… Watch this space!

Young Creators Lab and our Youth Collective are generously supported by The Helen Hamlyn Trust.

We shared the histories of medieval women

'What does hell smell like? At the British Library last week, I opened a small wooden door and inhaled a scent…' The Observer journalist Rachel Cooke gave us a five-star review for Medieval Women, our multi-sensory exhibition exploring the experiences of women in Europe in the period between 1100 and 1500.

From October 2024 until March 2025 we took visitors on a journey through the healthcare, households, work and creativity of women in medieval times. Exhibits included a letter from Joan of Arc, a birthing girdle inscribed with prayers and charms, the fascinating spiritual raptures of anchoress Julian of Norwich and the Book of Margery Kempe, the first autobiography ever written in English.

The exhibition was made possible with generous support from Joanna and Graham Barker and the Unwin Charitable Trust. The exhibition book was supported by Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor-advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.

We rescued endangered archives

Folklore from Moldova. Mexican musical treasures. Nepali manuscripts. Over the past 21 years our Endangered Archives Programme has helped digitise more than 16 million images and 35,000 sound tracks. The programme sets out to rescue archives around the world from oblivion, whether this is due to destruction, neglect or deterioration.

It’s funded by Arcadia, who support projects that preserve cultural heritage. So far, we’ve provided grants to over 500 initiatives in over 90 countries worldwide, in more than 100 languages and scripts.

We acquired five rare medieval manuscripts

Over the summer we acquired five manuscripts from the private library of Longleat House. Dating from the 13th century to the 15th century, they shed light on a transformative period for Britain and Ireland.

We have digitised the manuscripts so that they can be viewed by anyone. A trilingual Hebrew dictionary was a collaboration between monks and Jewish scholars in around 1250, before the expulsion of the Jews in 1290.

The Red Book of Bath is a handbook made for the town’s 15th-century administrators, featuring a cover that would once have held weights and scales.

There’s also a book about mysticism made for a female recipient, a collection of Middle English sermons and a devotional collection containing rare illustrations.

The acquisition has been made possible thanks to substantial grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund, The American Trust for the British Library, the British Library Collections Trust, the Friends of the Nations' Libraries, and other donors. The manuscripts can be consulted in the Manuscripts Reading Room at St Pancras.

And the archive of a ground-breaking playwright

In 1974 Mustapha Matura became one of the first British-based dramatists of colour to see his work performed in a major commercial London theatre. He later cofounded the Black Theatre Co-operative, which helped to shape Black British theatre from the late 1970s and was the originator of the influential TV sitcom No Problem!. This year we acquired Matura’s archive containing drafts of his plays, unpublished scripts, poetry and autobiographical material.

Curator Helen Melody commented, 'The archive is a particularly rich resource for textual study of Matura’s plays as it contains successive drafts, which allow a real insight into his creative process.'

We reinstated Oscar Wilde’s Reader Pass

In 1895 Oscar Wilde had descended from the height of his fame as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era to the scandal of a conviction for homosexual acts.

On 15 June he was officially excluded from the Reading Room of the British Museum, now the British Library. In October we symbolically reinstated his Reader Pass, presenting it to his only grandson Merlin Holland. Holland commented, 'The restitution of his ticket is a lovely gesture of forgiveness.'

We welcomed 15,000 visitors to Fighting to be Heard

We presented Fighting to be Heard, an exhibition connecting the art of calligraphy and the art of boxing, at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford from January to April this year.

Calligrapher Razwan Ul-Haq, champion boxer Tasif Khan and members of his Community Boxing Academy chose items to display from the British Library and Bradford District Museums & Galleries.

Eighty-one percent of attendees said that the event made them feel proud of their local area and many visitors said they were touched and inspired by the exhibition. 'Absolutely wonderful,' said one attendee. 'I am moved deeply and spiritually. I am so proud and pleased to see this exhibition in Bradford.' For 11.5% of visitors it was their first time participating in an arts and culture experience.

We were nominated for a social impact award

The Museums Change Lives Awards recognise outstanding work by UK museums setting out to support communities. This year we were nominated for our partnership with Leeds Children’s Services, which began during the pandemic. In collaboration with social workers, we’ve supported young people to create a recipe book using our collections and to map their life stories using historic maps as inspiration.

Cooked with Love (2020-22) was created by 29 young asylum seekers and Mapping Life Stories (2023-24) involved 18 young people from Leeds.

We made progress with our plans to expand our London site

In 2025 we made progress with our plans for a once-in-a-generation expansion of our St Pancras site and work begins next year. By transforming our site, we’ll create 100,000 square feet of new spaces for culture, learning, research and business, with new public areas including a community garden.

The design will open up our London building across three sides, connecting us with neighbours in Somers Town and St Pancras, and will enable us to offer more of what people love about the Library but in ways that suit them.

We’re making this project happen through an innovative partnership with Stanhope plc and Mitsui Fudosan (SMBL Developments Ltd) and will be launching a major fundraising campaign to fit out new state-of-the-art Library spaces.

We’re transforming our home in Boston Spa

Our collection grows by 8km each year and we’re rapidly running out of space. That’s why we’re constructing a new state-of-the-art storage facility at our Boston Spa site. It will help us care for the UK's collection for future generations and improve our sustainability. Work on this £95 million redevelopment continued this year, made possible thanks to major government investment through the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

In 2025 we also received a grant of £1 million from the Foyle Foundation. It will provide visitors with a behind-the-scenes view of the robots that retrieve books from our archives, and fund a dedicated learning space for schools. 

We supported Libraries Change Lives

In June we supported Libraries Week: Libraries Change Lives. This year’s theme was economic growth. Libraries boost the economy by giving people access to digital services, supporting job hunts, nurturing children’s literacy and fostering community in a safe, welcoming space. We’re partnered with CILIP, who represent people working in libraries, information and knowledge in the UK. They produce Libraries Week each year, showcasing the importance of libraries to communities across Britain and Northern Ireland. Our video shows the important impact that libraries can have.