Posts by Sarah Colborne
Effie, Lady Eastlake, and the evidence in the archives
October 16, 2014
Last night some of the staff from Manuscripts and Special Collections went to see the film ‘Effie Gray’, in order to compare the evidence in the archives held at the University of Nottingham with the latest interpretation of the scandal that was the annulment of the marriage of Euphemia Gray and art critic John Ruskin, and her subsequent marriage …
Embracing serendipity at the annual archives conference
September 24, 2014
‘Survival of the fittest’ was the theme for this year’s Archives and Record Association conference. Archivists, records managers and conservators from all across the UK and beyond gathered in Newcastle to share positive stories and advice, in an era which has seen damaging cuts to services (particularly in local record offices). There was no room …
Rock ‘n’ Roll at the Students’ Union
April 9, 2014
Originally posted October 14th, 2011 Manuscripts and Special Collections have recently finished digitising a series of Nottingham Students’ Union posters advertising gigs and events in the 1970s. The posters were carefully preserved for posterity by alumni John Bailey (Agriculture/Horticulture 1972) and Richard Stark (Chemical Engineering 1971), who were involved in booking bands for the Students Union. …
Throwback to The Gongster
April 3, 2014
A collection of student newspapers dating back nearly 120 years is proving to be a rich resource for researchers and staff at The University of Nottingham. Manuscripts and Special Collections has almost a complete run of the University’s student magazine, The Gongster, from its inception in 1939 to its closure in 1978. It was originally created as …
Marketing the ‘dear little things’
March 24, 2014
When cataloguing the records of the Wholesale Textile Association the other day, I came across a thought-provoking article in the trade magazine the ‘Textile Distributor’ from 1935. It offers advice to advertisers concerning the marketing of children’s wear and flags up what it considers to be a growth market: “Fashion counts enormously in presenting any …
Family inheritance on display
November 21, 2013
We were delighted to welcome Sir Andrew Buchanan, 5th Baronet, and his son George Buchanan to Manuscripts and Special Collections last week, on Mark Dorrington’s first day as the new Keeper of the Manuscripts at The University of Nottingham. Over the years the Buchanan family have deposited several significant collections of papers created by ancestors …
Celebrating archives everywhere: “A world without records is a world without memory”
November 19, 2013
This week sees the launch of a new campaign aiming to increase awareness of the essential role of archives in society. The campaign website for Explore Your Archive details forthcoming opportunities offered by archives all around the country to engage in a range of activities, from experiencing Downton Abbey for real, learning how to write in …
“Hitler is kaput!”: Soviet war poster victory celebrations
May 9, 2013
As Victory Day (Thursday 9 May) is marked across Europe, the celebratory sentiments of some of the Soviet propaganda posters featured in the online exhibition Windows on War, are still powerful, even though almost 70 years has passed since the war ended. The posters appeared almost daily in the windows of TASS, the Central Telegraph …
Windows on War – guest blog by Laura Todd
April 12, 2013
Among the archives of Manuscripts and Special Collections, is the University’s rare collection of Soviet war propaganda posters, dating from 1943-1945. The collection was a gift from one of the University’s Professors of English, Vivian de Sola Pinto (1895-1969). The collection of posters is the largest in the UK and covers an array of different …
A year immersed in water records
May 15, 2012
This month I have come to the end of a year spent appraising, arranging and describing over 500 boxes of archive material relating to water, in my role as cataloguing archivist for Manuscripts and Special Collection’s Water Records Project. It has been quite a task, wrestling with rolled up plans, unwrapping packets of mysterious …
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