October 24, 2011, by Andrew Burden

Manuscripts feature in University’s Impact Campaign

Visitors examine our display of manuscript material (photograph by Tracey Whitefoot)

On Monday 17 October, Manuscripts and Special Collections featured as one of the projects in the first day of the University’s new fundraising campaign.  The launch took place on University Park, at the East Midlands Conference Centre.  Guests were introduced to “The Nottingham Experience” theme, which is one of five campaign themes being launched in the course of the week. At the separate stands they learned more about the many different projects.

The campaign objective for Manuscripts and Special Collections is to raise awareness of the rich historic collections held by the university and make them more accessible for both study and public understanding. This will involve conservation and cataloguing activity as well as digitisation and engagement with new users of archives.

Professor Stephen Mumford at our conservation display (photograph by Tracey Whitefoot)

At the launch event, we showcased the collections and a number of projects.  Two portable cases were used for safe display, one of them featuring examples requiring preservation and conservation work.  Items from a recent leafcasting project attracted attention and kept our Conservation Assistant very busy – not least in guarding the sample of paper pulp from any accidental confusion with a smoothie!

John Colborne playing lute (photograph by Lisa Gilligan-Lee)

A more experimental approach to archives was illustrated by biscuits and cake, made using a recipe from the collections. And to keep us all calm we were accompanied by John Colborne, playing the lute in 17th century costume with music from a contemporary source in the collections also on display.

More information on the aspirations of Manuscripts and Special Collections in this campaign can be found on the Impact Campaign website.

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