Inside the British Library, two years after cyberattack

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

- ATHENA STAVROU

However, in October 2023, a major cyberattack 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 cyberattack 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.

“Staff have literally had to learn the locations of all the items – they have become the ordering system, become the computer.”

While they now use a digital form to place orders, staff still have to input information manually, which takes considerably longer.