"The universities of Oxford and Cambridge have joined forces for an unprecedented campaign to purchase an invaluable scholarly resource that illuminates more than a millennium of Mediterranean history. The material was originally brought to England in 1896 by the "Giblews" - the learned and adventurous Presbyterian twins Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, who had purchased thousands of manuscripts from a dealer in Cairo... Since no principles of selection had been applied, these included private letters, bills of lading, shopping lists, IOUs, alchemical formulae and amulets designed to facilitate love affairs."
There is a current series of short talks about the Genizah collection on BBC Radio 3. You can listen on iPlayer (with, I assume, geographical restrictions):
