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British Library: Treasures
   

    

£2.39/$3.87 A whole world in your hands  

The British Library is one of the most exclusive places in the UK. Most of the building is only open to the public if you have a reader pass, and this is because the library is a treasure trove of antique books and other historical artefacts and houses more items than any other library in the world.

This exclusivity has made the building famous.so it's great that an app has been released to show off some of the most valued articles within its confines.

If all this sounds like your cup of tea, you will be pleased to hear that this app lets you look at over 100 'treasures' from the library.This includes the original Alice In Wonderland manuscript, sketches by Da Vinci and other such niceties.

Some of the stuff on offer in the app is genuinely impressive - for example, it's brilliant to see William Blake's handwritten version of his poem The Tyger - while some we could have done without. For instance, who really wants to hear Ben Fogle rabbit on about Captain Scott's diary?
     

 This data-heavy app whets, rather than satisfies one's appetite for the treasures of an awesome institution.   

Lucky for every Fogle there is an actual expert ready to give you an audio quip or video explaining things like Beowulf.
All of this does mean that the app is data heavy, so make sure that when you are rifling through Alice's adventures or are watching the myriad videos on offer that you are doing it via a Wi-Fi connection, or the 3G police wi.l possibly castrate you.

And while we are speaking of niggles - this app would look great on a bigger-sized device, as a phone handset's display doesn't quite do  some of the content justice.

Some of the stuff on offer in the app is genuinely impressive while some we really could have done without    

 
 So, it might be worth holding off until you purchase one of the many Android tablets currently winging their way onto shop floors. If you are already in possession of, say, a Galaxy Tab then you are laughing.

The British Library is being a little sneaky about this app launch. By offering up only 100 things to look at, there will definitely be more apps like this round the corner. There is enough on snow here, though,to get your money's worth. But only just.