Befriend a Book 2024 – Campaign Success!

22 April 2025

Befriend a Book 2024 – Campaign Success!

Our Befriend a Book 2024 fundraising campaign has now ended and thanks to the generous support of fourteen donors we are delighted to say…
Hope and Literary Activism

12 August 2024

Hope and Literary Activism

Hope and activism are coterminous, or to use a more natural metaphor, they exist in symbiotic relationship. 

An article by Writer in Residence Karen Lloyd

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Exploring Women, Madness, and Disability in the Library and Archives

25 April 2024

Exploring Women, Madness, and Disability in the Library and Archives

“I felt extremely lucky to receive this scholarship because I knew my research would be greatly enhanced by the huge and varied array of resources on offer at the Library, but I was also really looking forward to having an idyllic workspace to study away from all of life’s distractions!” – Hannah Helm

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History: What it is and isn’t - Dan Kaszeta in the History Room

20 March 2024

History: What it is and isn’t - Dan Kaszeta in the History Room

History: What it is and isn’t

An article by Dan Kazseta, Writer in Residence in February and March 2024 and author of Toxic.

“History is not simply chronology and stenography, although those are basic building blocks. The uninitiated claim that “you can’t rewrite history” but that is literally not true. History is more than chronology, but even sometimes the chronology is wrong and has to get updated. History is also more than single-perspective accounts…”

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Lighting the fire

16 January 2023

Lighting the fire

“Around me scurry other writers, presumably of every discipline, each entirely wrapped in our own private creative fury. Table lamps illuminate every desk, so each warm glow seems to hold a discrete weather system of intense concentration.”

A blog by Writer in Residence Sophie Rickard

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A Room of One's Own by Sarah Watling

9 June 2022

A Room of One's Own by Sarah Watling

“At Gladstone’s, I don’t waste so much time working my way back into the world I left at my desk the last time I was there. To paraphrase ee cummings, here I can carry my book with me. I carry it in my head. I am never without it.”

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HERBOOK: Women book owners in the Gladstone’s Library Collections

31 March 2022

HERBOOK: Women book owners in the Gladstone’s Library Collections

Since March is Women’s History Month, it seemed appropriate to spotlight some of the women book owners recently identified within the collections.

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Digital relationships

8 October 2019

Digital relationships

Every few years, there is a gathering of a unique set of clans. In the UK, they are called ‘independent libraries’, while in the US they are ‘member libraries’; in Australia, they are ‘mechanics institutes’. All are libraries that make their own way in the world, with small budgets and even smaller staff numbers.

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The importance of collecting

29 July 2019

The importance of collecting

In an age of single use and throw-away products, we can often find ourselves yearning for something with a sense of permanence. No sooner have we bought the newest, shiniest iPhone than Apple releases the newer, shinier version, rendering our new phone a technologically competent, but intrinsically second-best space-filler. The same is true of cars, of clothes, of practically everything manufactured these days. The only thing that seems not to fit this mould? Books.

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A summer reading list

26 July 2019

A summer reading list

C.S. Lewis once said ‘You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.’ This is a maxim which suits our Library team very well indeed; there never seems to be enough tea, and in spite of working in a library with over 150,000 books and printed items, we seem to race through good books all too quickly!

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