Goldsmiths’ Company library widens access to rare jewellery and silver books with new digital catalogue

• The UK’s only specialist library dedicated to jewellery, silver and hallmarking to be made accessible online
• It will take up to five years to catalogue all 15,000 books and journals in The Goldsmiths’ Library – with new books added all the time
• One quarter of the collection is already available to browse online

The Goldsmiths’ Company has launched a digital library catalogue of publications on jewellery, silver and hallmarking, the largest of its kind in the UK, ensuring this unrivalled collection is accessible to all 24/7.

The Goldsmiths’ Company’s Library and Archive cares for material dating back to the 14th century, pre-dating the Great Fire of London, and the collection includes over 15,000 books and journals covering jewellery and silver, spanning centuries. The process of cataloguing the collection has reached a major milestone – over a quarter of the library’s catalogue is now online.

Librarian Eleni Bide says: “The new digital catalogue represents a major moment for the Goldsmiths’ Company, as we add 700 years of material into the first publicly available resource of our Library and Archive. As the UK’s largest specialist library for jewellery, silversmithing and hallmarking, improving access to our records is key to inspire and educate the next generation of craftspeople, as well as providing invaluable resources for students and academics.”