Major outage at London Public Library being investigated as ‘cyber incident’

The London Public Library (LPL) says it’s experiencing a major outage to its online systems that is being investigated as a ‘cyber incident.’

In posts on social media, the library says an investigation is underway, but a timeline for system restoration is unclear.

“We’ve had what we believe is a cyber incident,” said Ellen Hobin, communications manager at the LPL.

“Right now, we’re just investigating, we have experts working with us. And there’s not much more we know. But we’ll be posting updates as things change.”

Currently, these systems are down at the library:

• library website and catalogue
• WiFi
• computers and printing
• email and phones
• digital resources
• placing holds on books

“Because we don’t have our website, people will have to get updates from us through our social media for the moment. We hope that we have better news to share tomorrow,” Hobin said.

In-person library services, such as borrowing books, programming and library spaces, are still available.

“We understand … that this is very frustrating, and we’re sorry. But come in and see us. We’re here and we would really appreciate talking to you and connecting with you in person and finding you a book off the shelf,” Hobin said.

The Carson, Glanworth and Lambeth branches will close at 5 p.m. Thursday and remain closed until next week. The East London branch will also close at 5 p.m. but will reopen Friday morning.