British Library still recovering two years after cyber attack

Home to more than 170 million items, including the Magna Carta, the British Library is one of the largest and most impressive book collections in the world.

- Athena Stavrou, The Independent

But in October 2023, a major cyber attack plunged it into chaos, shutting down its digital systems and resulting in the leaking of staff details onto the dark web. Two years on, staff - who are striking due to a pay dispute - have said the disruption is still creating chaos and considerably increasing their workload.

They say they have faced abuse as a result of the ongoing issues, while some have had to make major changes in their personal lives after their personal details were leaked. One worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said staff have "essentially had to become the computer" due to the hack.

"Modern libraries are digitally focused - everything is done online from orders to content - so when the cyber attack happened, library systems were just taken down," they told The Independent.

"We had to do everything manually. To do orders, we had to write things down on a piece of paper and pass it to the next department, which takes a lot of time.