Last modified on Fri 5 Feb 2021 05.44 EST
It is a little-known fact that Birmingham is home to the largest Shakespeare collection in any public library in the world.
Created in 1864 to celebrate the playwright’s 300th birthday, it was the world’s first great Shakespeare collection and once held such standing that the Soviet government deposited 300 items in the collection during the depths of the cold war.
But in recent years the Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library has become a neglected asset, according to Professor Ewan Fernie, chair of Shakespeare Studies at Birmingham University and director of the Everything to Everybody project, which is striving to bring the archive into the heart of 21st-century life.