Medieval Music Manuscripts during the British Library Cyber-Attack

UPDATE: Catalogue and physical access to materials to begin again on Monday 15 January 2024

As many of you know, the British Library in London is still experiencing the after-effects of a powerful cyber-attack from October 2023. Most of their website – including catalogues and digitised manuscripts – is not available. Manuscripts cannot be consulted in the Manuscripts Reading Room. Updates on the situation for manuscript researchers can be found on the main site, including the manuscripts blog.

Medieval musicologists who need to check BL manuscripts during this period may have luck with one of the substitute possibilities:

1. The Manuscripts Reading Room in the BL has a card catalogue past the main desk and to the right at the end. This contains details of the microfilms and other reproductions that the BL has of its own manuscripts which amount to approximately 20% of the collection.

2. The Microfilm Archive of the Department of Musicology at the University of Basel has an exemplary collection of reproductions of medieval music manuscripts. To check if they have a reproduction:

• go to the online library catalogue, Swisscovery Basel
• type in the signature of the BL manuscript prefaced by GB-Lbl e.g. GB-Lbl 2637
• note the signature e.g. MWS MFA Rf-2807 (Sf=Streichfilm, Rf=Rollfilm)
• contact colleagues at the Department (mfa-mws@unibas.ch) who may be able to help

3. The Bruno-Stäblein-Archiv at the Department of Musicology at the University of Würzburg has a more modest collection of reproductions of medieval music manuscripts from the BL, including some overlap with Basel. David Hiley in collaboration with Robert Klugseder has produced a searchable database of the Archive with the BL manuscripts. Again, colleagues in the Department (martin.dippon@uni-wuerzburg.de) may be able to help.

4. Finally, the DIAMM website offers images for a range of medieval music manuscripts from the BL which, primarily, are concerned with polyphony. Users need to register and log in to see the reproductions.

We wish our colleagues at the BL well as they continue to grapple with the less helpful aspects of digital technologies.

Jeremy Llewellyn, Chair

5.i.2024