Posts by Sarah Colborne
Found: the lost archive of the Cross Country and Athletics Club
September 24, 2018
Manuscripts and Special Collections recently took in the lost archive of the University of Nottingham Cross Country and Athletics Club. Seven boxes of record books, photos and scrapbooks were bought into the MSC reading room by a former president of the Club who had saved them from destruction after discovering them hiding in the attic …
Student society archives: the SNoGS time capsule
May 22, 2018
We are continuing with our mission to collect material that reflects contemporary experiences of student life, and you may have seen us at Welcome Fairs pestering student societies to dig out the papers, photographs, posters and flyers that tend to get passed down from committee member to committee member. If you are a society officer …
Work placement with Manuscripts and Special Collections: the Stephen Lowe papers
April 25, 2018
This is a guest post by Georgia Cannon, second year undergraduate music student. As part of my Music degree, I chose to do a work placement module. I never realised there would have been an opportunity for working at Manuscripts and Special Collections, but I put it as my first choice knowing it would be …
The Life of a Communist: My placement working on the political papers of Fred Westacott
February 28, 2018
This is a guest post by second-year History and Politics student Niamh Southwell The ideas of Communism have always been a landmark moment in the study of political theory, however apart from the major leaders in these areas, often the effort of local champions for the cause are dismissed. Luckily for me, I had the chance …
Putting Creative Writing Back On The Syllabus
February 20, 2018
This is a guest post by second-year English student Bertie Beeching. “The Manuscripts and Special Collections archive,” I recalled reading to myself when scanning through placement opportunities. A small and contemptuous part of my brain made me envision a small, dark room filled with filing cabinets. You can imagine, then, how overwhelming it was to …
Portland Building: from the archives
July 20, 2017
Staff from Manuscripts and Special Collections look back on the original opening of the Portland Building and the reactions recorded at the time in the University archive and printed collections. Whilst browsing through issues of The Gong (the University magazine, which was founded in 1895 and ran until the 1970s), we chanced upon these drawings …
Ken Loach, Ken Coates and the European Union
July 6, 2017
In researching his 2016 British Academy award winning film ‘I, Daniel Blake’, director Ken Loach visited the St Ann’s Advice Centre in Nottingham (a community organisation offering advice on welfare benefits, employment and debt). Back in October 1966, two tutors of the University of Nottingham’s Adult Education Department, Ken Coates and Bill Silburn, had conducted …
The Sound of Lincolnshire Folk Song
November 10, 2016
The Lincolnshire Folk Song Collection was established in the early 1960s at Pilgrim College, Boston, Lincolnshire, and was transferred to Manuscripts and Special Collections in the 1990s. It has recently been given a new lease of life with the help of a student on a placement with us from the Department of Music, Lydia May. …
Tri-Campus Contemporary Collecting
May 4, 2016
Good luck to all students sitting exams! Although you may feel like recycling the lot when it is all over, Manuscripts and Special Collections would like you to spare a thought for the material you might have accumulated which would make a good addition to the University Archives. Whether you’re vacating your room in halls, fleeing a …
Grand Tourists and Others: exhibition opens
April 29, 2016
Intrepid explorer, Levison Wood, author of Walking the Himalayas and University of Nottingham History graduate (2004), journeyed to Nottingham Lakeside Arts to open Manuscripts and Special Collections’ latest exhibition Grand Tourists and Others: Travelling Abroad Before the 20th Century. The exhibition, curated by Levison’s former tutor Dr Ross Balzaretti (School of Humanities), takes the visitor on a …
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