World Curlew Day: Books, birds, and St. Beuno

20 April 2018

World Curlew Day: Books, birds, and St. Beuno

21st April is World Curlew Day, the first annual international event with the aim of raising awareness of the Curlew, one of the most recognisable of wading birds (numenius arquata). According to the RSPB, there are 66,000 breeding pairs in the UK, with 140,000 individual curlews wintering on our shores and estuaries each year.

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Preventing what is called ‘the black out of the mind’

17 April 2018

Preventing what is called ‘the black out of the mind’

Before World War II, when the library was only 30 years old, Alec Vidler, the then Warden of St Deiniol’s Library, was preparing for a ‘decrease in the number of ordinary visitors’, which he called ‘inevitable’ is his 1938 report to the board of trustees.

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Making the most of your visit to Gladstone’s Library

7 March 2018

Making the most of your visit to Gladstone’s Library

So, you’re visiting Gladstone’s Library for the first time, fantastic! What’s the plan?

We recommend arriving around 11am. Our on-site café and bistro Food for Thought is open to the public (10am – 5pm), and a nice hot cup of coffee is the perfect start to your day.

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Inspirational books by inspirational women

6 February 2018

Inspirational books by inspirational women

On 6th February 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. This gave 8.5 million women the vote (though it is important to note that this only represented 40% of the total population of women in the UK and it wasn’t until ten years later that women achieved full equality in voting rights).

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Gladstone's library of forking paths

18 January 2018

Gladstone's library of forking paths

In this blog, library intern Carla Manfredino considers the library used by one of her favourite writers, Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges, and asks how many of those books could be found on the shelves here in Hawarden… 

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Christmas reading recommends from the Gladstone's Library team!

15 December 2017

Christmas reading recommends from the Gladstone's Library team!

Gifting the perfect book to a person is one of the great joys of life; creating a perfect partnership which you can just feel in your bones will last.

With that in mind and as a little Christmas treat, the Gladstone’s Library team have gathered together some of our books of the year and reading recommends perfect for stockings. If you are still looking for that perfect gift for someone special, we hope you can find inspiration within this guide! 

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Class mark K

19 October 2017

Class mark K

I know what you’re thinking, the title ‘Class mark K’ is pretty vague, but I just didn’t know how else to describe this magical corner of the Annex, where I lost a good hour of my day because of the sheer number of books that I just wanted to delve into...

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Humanising Gladstone

11 October 2017

Humanising Gladstone

This is an account of an intern, fresh off the back of her first month working at Gladstone’s Library…

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Democracy by James Kirchick

7 August 2017

Democracy by James Kirchick

Staring at me from the desk in my bedroom at Gladstone’s Library during my recent residency was a postcard inscribed with a bit of the namesake’s wisdom: 

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. 

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Things I learned while not editing my novel by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

7 August 2017

Things I learned while not editing my novel by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

I met my first Wikipedia surfer, almost 10 years ago. It was my first year at university. The polo-shirted boy explained that he spent hours clicking link after link. It wasted days of his life, he said and smiled. Back in my dorm, tucked into my duvet, I settled in with Wikipedia. I clicked a link. I read for a while, and then stopped. The site seemed useful, but I wasn’t entranced by the hyperlink pathway.

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