Latest News

AGM 2025

2025-10-22T12:48:51+00:00

184^th Annual General Meeting

The 184th Annual General Meeting of The London Library will take place on Tuesday 25 November 2025 at 6pm in the Reading Room at the Library (and online)

All Members are cordially invited to attend pre-AGM drinks in the Art Reading Room from 5.30 pm, where there will be the opportunity to meet fellow Members, Library staff and Trustees.

The 2025 AGM Agenda and Minutes of last year's meeting are available below.

AGM 2025 Agenda

Minutes of the AGM held 26 November 2024

Please note that we are unable to accept questions and comments prior to the event and these will need to be submitted in the Q&A part of the meeting or via the chat facility, on the night.

For the voting section of the meeting, please may we remind Members that Remote and Associate memberships categories are not entitled to vote. For institutional members, one representative is entitled to vote only.

Book your place

Please click on the link below to go to our booking page:

New eResources: The Art Newspaper, Bloomsbury Collections

2025-09-24T09:52:42+00:00

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We’re pleased to introduce a new Bloomsbury Collections eBook package. This gives members access to approximately 3000 Bloomsbury eBook titles for one year, and after that a selection of the most popular titles used over the year will be permanently added to the collection.

Primary subjects covered are African studies, art & visual culture, classical studies & archaeology, design, fashion, film & media, history, literature, philosophy, theology.

The eBooks are accessible via Catalyst search and you can read these online, download chapter PDFs or download the full e-book in PDF format for reading on tablets, phones or offline.

We are also delighted to share that Library members now have access to the online version of The Art Newspaper. Founded in 1990, The Art Newspaper covers news of the international art world.

We have also added 75 unique titles since the original launch of the Bloomsbury eBook collection. Highlights include British ‘spy fever’ in the First World War: fearing the enemy within, Modern European borders in fiction: the divided continent and Objects of poverty: material culture in Britain from 1700, and many more.

To search our eBook Collections discretely, you can link to it from the Collections button at the top of Catalyst, or follow the link below.

Search Catalyst

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Wi-fi disruption ongoing at the Library - Monday 22 September

2025-09-22T10:39:01+00:00

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We apologise for the ongoing problems with our Wi-fi service. We understand how important internet access is for your work, studies, and browsing needs, and we are sorry for the frustration this is causing.

Please rest assured that our technical team is actively working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

We appreciate your patience and understanding while we get things back up and running smoothly, and we thank you for your continued support.

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A new season of Autumn events

2025-09-10T15:30:09+00:00

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Enjoy a new season of fresh and riveting events. Featuring our iconic RAP Party, this time celebrating Nature Matters, a genre-defining new anthology of nature poems from global majority writers, an illuminating instalment of Under the Covers with acclaimed writer and comedian Mel Giedroyc and bestselling author David Nicholls, and much more. Scroll down and book now to secure your place.

Explore What's On

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August 2025 - Building Connections Phase One update

2025-08-14T16:29:34+00:00

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Our plans are progressing well for Phase One of the Building Connections project, which is the repurposing of old offices into a new room on the ground floor and the creation of a basement kitchen.

See live updates here

Our building improvements are intended to help us make our collection more accessible, support the needs of our growing membership, and ensure our long-term sustainability. We are funding the improvements entirely from donations, and the funds for Phase One have already been secured. If you would like to read more about the project, please visit the project website where you will also find detailed FAQs. If you have any further questions or comments, please get in touch with us at buildingconnections@londonlibrary.co.uk.

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Building Connections Phase One update

2025-06-26T13:08:53+00:00

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Our plans are progressing well for Phase One of the Building Connections project, which is the repurposing of old offices into a new room on the ground floor and the creation of a basement kitchen. We are now coming to the end of our tender process to select a building contractor and remain on track for the Phase One building works to commence towards the end of July and complete by the end of December. We will allow January for final fit-out and hope to begin making proper use of the room from February/March onwards. The commencement of the works in late July enables us to take advantage of the quieter period in the Library over summer and keep any inconvenience to a minimum, which remains a priority.

During the works, the area beyond the ground floor lift containing the printer, scanner, catalogue computers and guard books will be closed. Members will continue to have access to these services throughout the works as the equipment and books will be moved to new locations.

The front part of the basement (the area directly below the Issue Hall) will also be closed for the duration of the works. We shall be putting in place arrangements for Library staff to access the volumes in that area, so that members may still use the collection housed in that part of the building. The basement toilets will remain fully accessible.

We expect that the rest of the Library will remain unaffected by the Phase One building works.

Further details will be provided to members in our next newsletter and on our website when we will have appointed a contractor and have more specific information on our arrangements.

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The London Library Announces The 2025/26 Emerging Writers Programme Cohort

2025-06-25T15:20:52+00:00

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The London Library is delighted to announce the newest cohort of its flagship Emerging Writers Programme, which supports early-career writers and is now entering its seventh year. The Programme is made possible thanks to the vital support from Amazon Literary Partnership, Bloomsbury Publishing, The Charlotte Aitken Trust, and Hawthornden Foundation.

40 participants were selected anonymously from a field of over 1950 applicants, a record-breaking number, by a panel of judges including poet Rishi Dastidar (Neptune’s Projects, Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different); children’s author, novelist, scriptwriter and songwriter Maz Evans (Who Let the Gods Out, Vi Spy); novelist and short story writer Irenosen Okojie(Nudibranch, Curandera); non-fiction author, photographer and broadcaster Johny Pitts (Afropean, Home is Not a Place); screenwriter and director Benjamin Ross (The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, Poppy Shakespeare); playwright and performer Chris Thorpe (The Shape of Pain, A Family Business) and C&W literary agents Emma Finn and Lucy Luck.

The emerging writers hail from across the UK, from Scotland to the South Coast, Northern Ireland to Cambridgeshire and they span an age range from early twenties to early fifties. The cohort is working on a diverse array of projects, taking us from Sri Lanka to Zimbabwe, the Philippines to the Caribbean, the borderlands of Poland/Ukraine and England/Scotland and to all the many global iterations of Lands End. They explore ancient Rome, the Silk Road, Victorian erotica, Cold War Germany and the Partition of India. There are projects about literary couples, divorce, eugenics, sonic distortion and sonic fetishism, nostalgia, grief, religion and romance.

Find out more about our new Emerging Writers cohort

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Library building open as normal - Saturday 21 June

2025-06-20T08:32:11+00:00

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UPDATE: Library building open as normal - Saturday 21 June

We are pleased to report that the Library building is now open with full access to power. Members can enjoy access to all services as usual. 

UPDATE: work continues on power outage issue

UK Power engineers have been working on the issues in the local area and power has been largely restored. However, we are still working to restore our building systems, which may take a few more hours. Therefore, the building will remain closed to members for the rest of the afternoon.

We are expecting the Library to be open as normal on Saturday 21 June.

Thank you for your patience.

Library building closed due to local power outage - Friday 20 June

Due to a UK Power outage in the local area, the Library building is currently unable to open to ensure the safety of our staff and members.

Along with neighbouring buildings, large areas of the Library are affected included the stacks, lifts, toilets and fire alarms. Members may also experience a delay in communicating with staff who cannot access emails.

Engineers are currently working on this issue and we have been advised that we may be able to open this afternoon.

In the meantime, members not visiting the building today can make use of our electronic resources, Catalyst, and eBooks, as well as the online events available through the website.

Please check back here for updates.

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Announcing the London Library Ambassadors

2025-06-16T15:38:38+00:00

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We are delighted to announce our five new London Library Ambassadors, who join our existing 10 ambassadors and will help raise awareness of the Library and expand the Library’s reach and impact.

The Ambassadors were chosen for their longstanding support in which each member has, on numerous occasions, voluntarily offered their time, expertise and platform for the Library. Their work spans genres, from historic writing to poetry and academia, reflecting our wonderfully creative and diverse community.

We are glad to publicly extend our gratitude for their valued, ongoing commitment to the Library.

Find out more about the Library Ambassadors

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