See you next year!

The Library closes today for the Christmas break and reopens again on January 2nd. We look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year and leave you with this lovely Victorian Christmas card from our ephemera collection.

A very Merry Christmas to all our readers!

Merry Christmas from the Elven Librarians

Library staff have been busy this morning taking a rest from interpreting the Elvish archive and have put on a little Christmas show for you all...

Ambassador, you are spoiling us!

This is only one of the unofficial captions for this year's Library Christmas card... others included, 'What? You know I'm allergic to eggs!' and other less printable suggestions.

Whatever your interpretation of the scene, we wish you all the compliments of the season!

Christmas and New Year Closing

The Library will close at the usual time next Thursday 20th and will remain closed until Wednesday 2nd January at 9am.

We wish all our followers, readers, visitors and friends a very Merry Christmas!

The man who knew everything

This wonderfully crazy illustration is taken from one of the many works by Athanasius Kircher held by the Library. Described as 'the last man who knew everything', Kircher was a seventeenth-century polymath who was likened to da Vinci and published lavishly illustrated works on every subject under the sun.

To read more, visit our 101 Treasures page this week.

Our Paintings

All the oil paintings held at Chetham's Library are now available to view online on the BBC Your Paintings website!

Your Paintings is an ambitious collaboration between the Public Catalogue Foundation and the BBC, to put online the UK's entire collection of oil paintings in public ownership. Over the last ten years work has been underway to make a photographic record of every single painting and publish it on the web.

The project covers not only works held by museums and galleries but those in universities, council offices, hospitals, and even fire stations, zoos and a lighthouse. Most of these are not generally on view to the public, including several of those here at Chetham's.

Do go and take a look at the website - it's a wonderful resource.

Dame Joan Bakewell is our new Honorary Patron!

We're thrilled to announce that Dame Joan Bakewell has kindly agreed to be the first Honorary Patron of our newly formed Patrons Scheme! This is a fantastic way to support the work of the Library and get yourself or a friend invited to all the exhibition previews, workshops and behind-the-scenes tours of the Library and medieval buildings.

Why not treat yourself or a friend for Christmas? Membership forms are available on the website.

Hallelujah!

It was a Happy Tuesday yesterday, as Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays visited the Library filming his new series for the History Channel about extra-terrestrial activity. 'Shaun Ryder on UFOs' will air next year, should you be interested.