Happy World Blood Donor Day! 14th June each year is when the world celebrates the altruistic actions of millions who donate blood to maintain badly needed reserves of blood and blood products, such as plasma. Anyone who is injured, falls ill, requires an operation or otherwise needs blood, including hemophiliacs, cancer patients and others with blood disorders rely upon these donations of blood to survive. The World Health Organisation website explores the role of blood transfusions in more detail.
Blood banks are frequently understocked, sometimes dangerously so, and donors are always in great demand. If you are thinking about becoming a blood donor, you can find out more here.
Well, perhaps not quite all of it, but today is the long awaited day when the illuminated logo on the front of the library building is replaced. Today we see take last lingering look at a sign that has probably been a part of the library longer than anyone still working here. Change is one of the signs of life, however, and the institutional rebranding continues apace.
Among the many things Google is involved in at the moment is the controversial new e-journal Distill, a product of its the Distill Working Group. Operated at a distance as a peer-reviewed academic journal in the area of artificial intelligence, questions are being raised about its standing and, more importantly, whether this makes Google now a publisher and media company. Read more on the 
Tomorrow is World Gin Day. Dubbed “mother’s ruin” in Victorian Britain, in a campaign that at one point saw people seriously recommending the “warming effects of beer” over the chill charms of the juniper-scented spirit. Gin, like all alcoholic drinks, can cause problems when enjoyed to excess or in an escape to drown out emotional problems. Gin has been singled out for derision historically because it was the cheapest and most readily available form of alcohol, providing unwelcome competition for organised religion as the consolation of the masses. Slammed in the popular nineteenth century cartoon “Gin Lane” by William Hogarth (right), which depicts a drunken women slumped in the throws of gin fuelled alcoholism to the point she is blissfully unaware of her infant child falling a great distance from her arms, gin has also featured as the voiceless villain in such films as “The sorrows of gin” (available through our Digital Theatre Plus subscription, link below). It is perhaps not surprising that the gin industry has since felt the need for a bit of self-promotion! 
The Library is pleased to present new and expanded historical resources covering gender and social change and documentation on the papers of state, including a brand new resource, Gender: Identity and Social Change and a huge expansion to the authoritative State Papers Online. 
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