The British Library occupies a special place in the world of research, and for our many users across the UK and international academic community the past nine months since the cyber-attack of October 2023 have been a uniquely frustrating and sometimes upsetting time, as familiar services and resources have remained either limited or, in some cases, inaccessible. 

I can only apologise for the disruption that has been caused to so many of you. It is, I know, of little comfort to say that the sense of loss you feel is shared by every one of us here. 

As I described in my previous update on this blog, the time it is taking us to bring our services back is an exact measure of the destructiveness of the original attack, which directly targeted our core computing infrastructure.  Alongside the comprehensive rebuild of those systems – a process that would normally be scheduled over years rather than months – we have also been scanning our vast array of datasets to ensure that no malware or viruses have been left by the attackers.  

To date we have scanned more than 6 billion files and have, thankfully, been able to give all of them a clean bill of health. This painstaking process takes time, but we are continuing to follow a “safety first” approach – as you might expect after the experience of such a devastating attack.   

All our efforts are now focussed on the start of the new academic year and ensuring that the best achievable range of services is made available, even though in many cases the process of full restoration will still not be complete. I have summarised a few of the key areas in the update below. 

• Remote ordering 

• Online resources 

• Non-Print Legal Deposit (NPLD) content 

• Collection items held in Boston Spa 

• Looking further ahead 

Remote ordering

Earlier in the year we surveyed our users on their priorities for services they wished to see restored, and the overwhelming feedback was that the return of remote ordering for users of our Reading Rooms was number one on this list.  This is of especial importance for Readers who live some distance from our sites in London and Yorkshire and do not, of course, want to risk a wasted journey.   

Our ability to restore this vital element of our service has been hampered by the absence of a secure computing infrastructure, as any process needs to balance effectiveness as an ordering mechanism with the critical need for secure tracking of collection items as they move from the storage areas, through our buildings to the Reading Rooms – and back, once they have been used. 

In spite of these complexities, I am pleased to confirm that an interim remote ordering method will be in place by the start of the new academic year in September. As with other current workarounds currently in use, aspects of the process will remain semi-manual, but in terms of convenience for Readers it should be a useful step forward. We will share more details about this, including practical information about how to use the new process, as soon as it is finalised. 

Online resources

Also aiming for the start of the academic year will be two key resources for our audiences in research and learning. As mentioned in my previous update, an initial set of digitised manuscripts will become available again – restoring access to fully digitised versions of some of our most iconic manuscript treasures. Our curatorial teams have compiled a prioritised list of manuscripts based on criteria including the items that were most requested prior to the cyber-attack and items to which Reading Room access is restricted. 

The first tranche of items from this list will become available in September, with our aim being to gradually increase the numbers of items that are back online from that point forward. Although it isn’t possible for us to restore the Digitised Manuscripts website in its previous form, the access solution we are putting in place this autumn will begin to address the absence of our digital collections from the web. We will be sharing more information about items included in the initial release, as they are confirmed, via our Medieval Manuscripts blog and social feed.   

As the school year begins, selected resources from our learning websites will also start to return online, starting with a number of the most-viewed items from our hugely popular Discovering Literature web resource. These will be gradually augmented by items from Discovering Sacred Texts and other sites that were available prior to the cyber-attack. Again, this will be an initially small proportion of what was previously online, but will, I hope, represent a welcome return of some of our most sorely-missed content. 

Non-Print Legal Deposit (NPLD) content

I am pleased to confirm that a solution has now been developed to enable the restoration of access to Non-Print Legal Deposit content to our partner libraries in the Legal Deposit network: the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library and the library of Trinity College Dublin. The technical solution will be in place by early September, after which each library in the network will restore access arrangements in their own reading rooms, once they have the capacity to do so.   

As previously mentioned, this tranche of restored NPLD content will consist of e-journals and e-publications deposited prior to October 2023, and won’t for the time being include the UK Web Archive, for which a different technical solution is required.  Because of the importance of NPLD for university users, we have prioritised access to our partner libraries: for technical reasons access within our own Reading Rooms will take a little longer. We’ll share more on this soon. 

Collection items held in Boston Spa

As regular users of our Reading Rooms will know, there are still two important parts of our physical collection at Boston Spa that have not yet been restored to use, both of which are held in automated storage facilities whose systems were affected by the attack: the 262 kilometres of books held in our Automated Storage Building (ASB), and our physical newspaper collection housed in the National Newspaper Building.  

Work to restore access to ASB content is now nearly complete, although availability in our Reading Rooms is now expected to re-commence in August, rather than July as previously reported.  

In my last blog I was more cautious about the timetable for restoration of access to the National Newspaper Building, but I’m pleased to report that since then, significant progress has been made in restoring the automated system that enables access to this vast collection. We are, therefore, proceeding with work to restore the service, and will provide a timetable for availability as soon as this is confirmed.

Once both of these collections are opened up, the entirety of our physical collection, with only very few exceptions, will once again be available to Readers in Boston Spa and St Pancras. 

Looking further ahead

The service restorations described above are just the next stage in a continuing process: looking further ahead, we will continue to increase the range and scale of the materials available, while also looking to lay the foundations of a comprehensive longer-term service offering, including a full-scale website and a brand-new library services platform. 

Once again I would like to thank all of our users across the academic community and beyond for the patience and understanding you have shown us on our journey so far along the complex and sometimes bumpy road to recovery from the cyber-attack.  We are working hard to deliver both the access that you require, and the secure and resilient service you deserve. 

Sir Roly Keating 

Chief Executive