Collections and climate

Blog series Knowledge Matters

Author Lucy Lovell, PhD placement student

The British Library’s vast collections have an untold number of items relevant to the topic of climate, sustainability and nature loss.

As part of my 2025 PhD Placement with the British Library, I was tasked with finding out how people are already using the collection for this purpose and what other collections areas might be of interest. The project brought together staff from across the library and revealed some unexpected items and interesting connections across the collection.

How are people already using the collection?

The project identified 4 themes for content which people ask for, and how people are already using the collection:

• Seeking to understand changes over time. E.g. Using the Maps collection to review how the natural landscape has changes
• Looking for information to tackle practical problems. E.g. Visiting the Business & IP Centre for industry guidance on sustainable business practice
• Creative responses to climate, sustainability and nature loss. E.g. Looking at the formation of the climate fiction genre
• Climate, sustainability and nature loss as a social/political phenomenon. E.g. Using the News collections to see how environmental issues are reported.

Less obvious collection areas

There are many obvious ways the British Library’s collections can relate to the topic of climate, sustainability and nature loss. However, the project also identified some other areas and items that may not be immediately evident. For example:

• If you are interested in understanding changes over time, have you considered using the printed heritage collections (both for Western Heritage and Asia & Africa collections) to find personal accounts of historic climates? For example, mountaineering reports can provide evidence of weather at a certain time. The Endangered Archives Programme can also provide unique perspectives from areas not fully documented.
• If you are looking for information to tackle practical problems, have you considered utilising the large selection of trade journals in the Business collection that may be of use for climate adaption; or investigating the Science collections for the technical details informing green technologies?
• If you want to see creative responses to climate, sustainability and nature loss, have you considered the Music collections for experimental pieces related to the environment?
• If you want to know more about climate, sustainability and nature loss as a social/political phenomenon, have you considered the Social Sciences collection for governmental policies? Likewise, the India Office Records hold many government records including records of Indian Government discussing bills and topics related to the environment.

Links between collection areas

The impacts of climate change are neither sector nor region specific. Likewise, the potentially relevant items within the British Library collection are not limited to a single collection area. Many separate collections will even have complimentary items.

The picture below depicts a small selection of some of the identified links between collections. For instance, if you were interested in the political influences on climate change, you could potentially look into the Social Sciences collections for official governmental publications, the News collection for how the topic has been reported, the Politics, Science and Society Archives (within Contemporary British Archives) for the personal archives of former Secretaries of State for Energy, or the Contemporary British and Irish Publications collection for artists’ books responding to political issues, to name just a few areas.

There are many more useful items and linked collections and many yet to be discovered. I hope that this project can inspire others to explore new areas of the British Library collections and discover more connections.

Personal reflections:

Undertaking a PhD Placement at the British Library has been a fascinating experience which has enabled me to apply research skills from my PhD to a professional environment, and to gain new skills which I hope to take forward into my future career. The staff at the British Library welcomed me from the start and were keen to share their time, knowledge, and contacts to help me make the most of the research project.

Throughout my placement I’ve had many opportunities to attend events and training sessions, including attending a Climate Literacy course in September and events for Green Libraries Week 2025.

The opportunity to explore the British Library collections related to climate, sustainability and nature loss has been truly eye-opening and I am looking forward to sharing the insights I’ve gained with my colleagues at the University of Birmingham.