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IRST things first for this final Mediawatching of 2025 – Seasons Greetings to everyone and wishing you all a very Happy New Year. Particularly for staff working in the Louvre and Brazil’s Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, who have had nightmare ends to 2025.
Following on from the high-profile theft of jewels at France’s flagship museum, news has emerged of damage to items held in the museum’s library for Egyptian antiquities. A burst waterpipe in the library has caused damage to hundreds of journals and scientific papers. It has been revealed that all of the stock is from the 19th and 20th Century, and no historic artefacts were damaged. The leak occurred in an area that is due to be refurbished (
https://tinyurl.com/IPMWDec). On a similar theme, armed thieves targeted the library, which was hosting a joint exhibition with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, and made off with a number of valuable paintings and engravings. Two armed men held up security guards and two elderly visitors to the library before making off with eight engravings by French Artist Henri Matisse and a further five by Brazilian Cândido Portinari. The library is the second largest in Brazil and thieves struck on the final day of its From Book to Museum exhibition. At the time of writing one suspect had been arrested while the search continued for the artwork and the second thief (https://
tinyurl.com/IPMWDec1).
Onto an altogether more uplifting story,
and El Pais reports on the first director of New York’s Morgan Library (https://tinyurl. com/IPMWDec2). The library celebrated its centenary last year, and El Pais took a closer look at the role of Belle da Costa Greene in shaping the library into one of the Big Apple’s most celebrated institutions.
Use Lahoz reports that the Morgan Library was originally conceived as the private library of financier John Pierpont Morgan. On his death his son J.P. Morgan jnr. took it on and appointed Belle as his
Winter 2025
Louvre, Paris. Photo © By Benh Lieu Song CC BY-SA 3.0.
personal librarian. When the collection was opened to the public in 1924 Bella took on the roll of Director. Philip Palmer and Erica Cialla who helped curate an exhibition on Bella’s life – Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy – revealed: “Belle da Costa Greene thrived in a world that tried to limit her because of her race and gender. Her story inspires future generations of women. Greene’s legacy is evident in the collections she helped develop, the reading room services, and the exhibition programs she established. Her ideas about access to books and manuscripts were groundbreaking.” Children in Liverpool will be in for a festive treat this Christmas if they sign up for a library card. Liverpool City Council is offering a gift of book to any child aged under five who joins their local library before Christmas day (
https://tinyurl.com/ IPMWDec3). Jess Dyson-Houghton, Library Operations Manager, told Mersey News Live: “We are really keen to support all of our readers, especially our young readers, and we think this is a really lovely thing to do to celebrate our young readers at Christmas time and make sure that everyone walks away with a free book.” And sticking with the Christmas theme
– although not such a happy story, we turn to Brighton and Hove News (https://
tinyurl.com/IPMWDec4), which reports “Santa delivers children’s letters calling for libraries to stay open.”
Instead of traditional letters to Santa, children have been calling on councillors to save Westdene Library, which is under threat of closure along with Hollingbury Library. Campaigner Alicia Buckingham donned a white beard and red suit to drop off a bundle of letters to a cabinet meeting where councillors will take a final decision on the two libraries’ fates.
News of another (distant) closure, and possible re-opening – although not as a library – is provoking consternation in the Borders town of Jedburgh. Campaigners have been angered by the sale of a former Carnegie Library to a local councillor. The Library, which has been closed since 2019, was sold on the open market but the BBC (
https://tinyurl.com/IPMWDec5) reports that a petition of 1,000 names was handed in to the local council calling for some form of community asset transfer.
So, as the year comes to an end, there is just enough space to say thanks for reading in 2025, and we look forward to trawling the news together in 2026. IP
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