In response to the challenges created by the global public health crisis of COVID-19, Project MUSE is pleased to support its participating publishers in making scholarly content temporarily available for free on our platform. With many higher education institutions moving into an exclusively online learning environment for the foreseeable future, we hope that easy access to vetted research in the humanities and social sciences, from a variety of distinguished university presses, societies, and related not-for-profit publishers, will help to support teaching, learning, and knowledge discovery for users worldwide.

The UK has rainfall records dating back 200 years or so, but the vast majority of these are in handwritten form and can't easily be used to analyse past periods of flooding and drought. The Rainfall Rescue Project is seeking volunteers to transfer all the data into online spreadsheets. You're not required to rummage through old bound volumes as the Met Office has already scanned the necessary documents - all 65,000 sheets.

The Government has recently published advice on how copyright laws will change in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The library will certainly be affected by changes to the management of 'orphan work' images. See the paragraph below for details. If this comes to pass the Library will create a new policy to apply to those requesting the use of orphan works from within our collection.

British History Online provides online access to "The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent", volumes 1 to 12, by Edward Hasted and originally published in 1797.

We've just had news from the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. Their journal Archaeologia Aeliana is now available online for free.

The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. The collections holds material relevant to the study of Kent. On January 6, 2016, The New York Public Library enhanced access to all public domain items in Digital Collections so that everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways.

The KM Group digital archive is available online. It has been expanded to include the newspapers from both the First and Second World Wars. The archive provides a fascinating insight into Kent’s leading role in the Great War, World War II (especially the Battle of Britain) and will prove an invaluable tool for anyone interested in the period.