Digital resources and the speed and ease with which researchers anywhere can now access vast amounts of information have transformed the nature of the research process. The advent of electronic resources and digital libraries and repositories has also dramatically changed the function of academic libraries in terms of organization, service delivery, and collection development, with much information and many resources now accessed online. Nowadays, librarians and information professionals are expected to provide services to library users who increasingly demand instant access to information on multiple digital platforms.

The attraction of electronic resources and the archiving of these resources, is easy to understand: they are eco-friendly, time and cost saving, offer multi-access, round the clock availability, and provide a facility to access resources without requiring a physical presence in the library.

We have recently launched a new online catalogue to display information about some of the 1,000s of archives and objects held within the British Empire & Commonwealth (BEC) Collection. Following the process of development and consultation, we are now providing access to a significant part of the Collection. We're also planning further phases of work to improve the visibility of material, especially about people who lived under the confines of the former empire. Our prime motivation is to enable access to material so that it can be explored globally and from multiple perspectives.

The BEC Collection is based in Bristol Archives, an appropriate place in that Bristol played a key role in the history of the empire for several centuries, specifically for its part in the transatlantic slave trade.

Of all the colonial novels Thomas Vetch's The Amber City, published in Londoi by Biggs & Debenham in 1888 (or perhaps 1889), is one of the rarest. Only fivi copies are recorded on WorldCat – all in the United States – and, despite bein; published in London, it is held by none of the UK legal deposit libraries, no by any UK university library. Yet, in its mixture of (almost believable) sciena fiction and boy's own adventure, it is one of the most intriguing of all such nar ratives, and in spite of being liberally peppered with a good deal of the casua racism common to the period and the genre, it remains eminently readablf today. It is also surrounded by a good deal of mystery, prompting questions; to how much of it is based on reality, and, perhaps even more intriguingly, the true identity of the author.