The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve is now lodged in the archives of the British Library, so future mad album art researchers can peruse it at their leisure! These days publishers have to send the library six copies of each new title, the rest are then shipped on to the national libraries in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with two more going to Cambridge University (my Mum would be proud, that’s where she went!) and the Bodleian in Oxford. It’s a clever scheme though it often takes a prompt from their legal deposit department for us to remember to do it! Sadly donating books like this does not give us any sort of a discount if we wish to use the British Library resources in turn; it’s still £31 (pre-covid prices) for them to send me one snap of an album sleeve from their collection…

So, for one of our upcoming titles we’re hoping to get over to the storage library at Boston Spa (above) and take some photos ourselves, now the dreaded cyber attack closures appear to be under control. And I am more than excited about plans to open extra facilities in Leeds at the utterly marvellous Temple Works, abandoned for decades by the thickies at the council. Let’s hope this doesn’t go under Rachel Reeves mad austerity mk 2 agenda.