British Library: Treasures

‘Treasures’, the British Library’s first app for Android makes it possible to explore some of the Library’s rarest and most extraordinary written and printed material – from wherever you are in the world.

**NOTE: At the launch of the application you will be prompted with two options to download assets to your SD card. One option is 41mb (images download, other content streams) and the other is 1.1gb (images, audio and video all download). We recommend selecting the 41mb with a WiFi network allowing all the audio and videos to stream within the app. The 1.1gb option is meant for users who may not have consistent access to a network and is a large download. Many Android devices rely solely on an SD card for storage. These devices typically have a small amount of built in storage preventing us from offering the 41mb download of the app initially.

Created in partnership with Toura, the app includes over 100 highlights from our collections, including literary, historical, music-related and scientific documents - alongside illuminated manuscripts and sacred texts. Each is presented through high-resolution images, allowing the viewer to zoom in and explore in extraordinary detail.

Literary highlights include Charles Dickens’s handwritten draft of Nicholas Nickleby and Jane Austen’s teenage writings, while key historical documents include 2000-year-old Oracle Bones from China, an original Magna Carta of 1215, Elizabeth I’s famous Tilbury speech before the Spanish Armada, and a recording of suffragette Christabel Pankhurst’s speech after her release from prison.

The section devoted to music includes manuscript scores from some of the best-known classical composers, such as Handel, Purcell, Mozart and Schubert. A section devoted to maps showcases some of the most interesting and beautiful maps and views from the collection.

Christian texts include the Codex Sinaiticus, the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Gutenberg Bible. Other faiths are represented by the Golden Haggadah, Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an, and Buddhist, Daoist, Hindu, Sikh and Zoroastrian manuscripts.

The scientific documents, which are generally less well-known, explore fields such as astronomy, botany, zoology and medicine. They include manuscripts, notebooks and letters that reveal some of the key scientific developments of all time, including Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, and Copernicus’s and Galileo’s findings on the structure of the cosmos.

Alongside these images, the app also includes sound recordings and nearly 50 short videos. This multimedia content totals over 1.2GB and is best when viewed over a WiFi connection. Videos include interviews with British Library curators, the linguist David Crystal and explorer Ben Fogle.

The app will be regularly updated with information on British Library exhibitions, highlighting some of the star items that will be on display. At the time of launching, the app includes information on ‘Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices’.