alice-munday.bsky.social
@alice-munday.bsky.social
Archives Trainee. All views my own.
Solidarity with BL strikers ✊
British Library staff asked for a decent pay. Instead they got ‘a few money-saving present ideas’, such as ‘consider not giving presents this holiday season’. They are on strike this week. I wrote about it for @lrb.co.uk. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...
Anna Aslanyan | On the Picket Line
On Monday morning, more than a hundred people formed a picket line outside one of the entrances to the British Library...
www.lrb.co.uk
December 13, 2025 at 9:47 AM
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🎶A botanical musical? We recently stumbled across these in the 'Flora Cibaria' manuscript of botanist Lilly Wigg (1749-1828). The volumes consist of other people's writings and are full of surprises, with psalms and melodies strewn throughout, and little direct link to the botany on the page. #KewLA
December 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM
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I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:27 AM
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Today on #ArmisticeDay, we're remembering the Kew staff who served during both World Wars and balanced their lives in science and horticulture with duty and sacrifice 🧵👇

#KewLA
November 11, 2025 at 1:09 PM
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One story that stands out from our "Men on Active Service" volume is J. Sparrow, who served in the Army Cyclist Corps in the First World War. Awarded the Military Medal in 1916, he returned to Kew in 1919.

#KewLA
November 11, 2025 at 1:09 PM
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Solidarity with @pcsunion.bsky.social workers at the British Library.

300 workers on strike. Some of them having to take second jobs or taking out loans just to be able to survive.

A Pay "award" below inflation is a pay cut. Unacceptable.

Solidarity - and keep organising! ✊🏼
November 7, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Great to be part of #HistDay25 and talk all about Kew, as well as exploring for myself lots of new archives and collections!
Today, our Graduate Trainees have been representing Kew Library & Archives for #HistDay25 at Senate House Library. It's been a great way to share highlights from our collections with potential students and researchers as well as discover more about other libraries and archives! #KewLA
November 4, 2025 at 5:35 PM
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British Library workers are sick of poor pay, overwork, and feeling the fallout of a cyber-attack which left them vulnerable to identity theft and blackmail. Now, they are going on strike for a fortnight.

tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/from...
From National Treasure to National Scandal
British Library workers are sick of poor pay, overwork, and feeling the fallout of a cyber-attack which left them vulnerable to identity theft and blackmail. Now, they are going on strike for a fortni...
tribunemag.co.uk
October 27, 2025 at 3:07 PM
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Farage: epic grifter
October 27, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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Last week our Library & Archives team welcomed 60 students from Graphic Comms at the University of Southampton to explore themes around plant histories, challenging perspectives through engagement with the archive. We look forward to seeing their interpretations of the display we prepared! #KewLA
October 15, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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Ah, happy 88th anniversary of the day Oswald Mosley tried to sell fascism to Liverpudlians – and someone concussed him with a brick
October 10, 2025 at 7:53 AM
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Botanist or poet? For National Poetry Day, we discovered poetry hidden amongst the personal papers of botanists - from J. Fraser’s 1919 poem on poppies to H.M Ward’s critique’s on his mother’s poetry!
#KewLA
October 2, 2025 at 9:50 AM
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On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read
October 2, 2025 at 8:41 AM
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Want to sign an apologetic letter? Don't just include your signature, do what Charles Grenfell has done in this 1870s letter: draw a little sketch of yourself and say that you 'feel quite idiotic'.
September 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM
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Why aren’t Police Records in England & Wales covered by the Public Records Act? We've been campaigning on this since 2012 - blog for more info:
www.campaignforrecords.org/blog/why-arent-police-records-covered-by-the-public-records-act
#publicaccountability
of interest @andyburnham.bsky.social ?
September 25, 2025 at 10:36 AM
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Our team recently came across these beautiful drawings of wild flowers in Libya. They were made by Jocelyn Russell in 1940s. Her Mechanised Transport Corps was stationed in North Africa during WWII and it was during this time that she made illustrations of the plants she saw. #KewLA #Wildflowers
August 28, 2025 at 2:01 PM
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We’re thrilled to be a recipient of the latest Archives Revealed grant to catalogue & make accessible the personal papers of individuals in our collections! 🎉

This will help us uncover the hidden voices of women, Indigenous peoples & names less commonly associated with botany 🌱

👉 ow.ly/5TTb50WI3tj
August 19, 2025 at 9:04 AM
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For this month’s #ExploreYourArchive theme #EYAHumour, we found the 1976 journal of the ‘Gilbert and Succulent Society’ in our Kewensia ephemeral collections. Seemingly only ‘published’ once, it contains humorous poems and articles – we enjoyed this one about a cactus’s haircare routine. #KewLA
August 21, 2025 at 3:01 PM
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Time to celebrate #NationalPotatoDay with 'Spuds in Pubs'. You've probably never considered smoked mackerel fillets with orange segments, or cod roe with pearl onions, as jacket potato toppings.

These culinary delights feature in the British Beer and Pub Association papers from the 1970s.
August 19, 2025 at 3:09 PM
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With the Palm House set for restoration in 2027, we dipped into the archives to see how our iconic glasshouse has been cared for over time. One surprising find? The coronation arches from the Mall in 1953 were considered for a past restoration!

Missed the announcement? 👉 www.kew.org/kew-gardens/...
August 7, 2025 at 10:56 AM
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Vandalism! At some stage in its nearly 500 year history, someone cut out the printer's ornament from the title page of our 1544 copy of Aesop's Fables.
August 5, 2025 at 4:16 PM