Posts by Sarah Colborne
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 …
Tin Town: village of the dam builders
April 17, 2012
One of the most exciting finds amongst the water archive material I am cataloguing for the Water Records Project, is a series of significant architects plans for various buildings which formed the ‘Tin Town’ at Birchinlee, Derbyshire. When work started in 1901 on the construction of the Howden and Derwent Dams, the Derwent Valley Water …
Water work: the staff of the River Trent Catchment Board
February 21, 2012
A large leather-bound photograph album, found amongst the archive material I’ve been cataloguing for our water records project, gives an introduction to the work of the Engineer’s Department of the River Trent Catchment Board and the significant events that affected its activities in the years 1932-1939. These events include the building of new premises, …
New water collection descriptions online
January 6, 2012
The latest stage in the University’s National Cataloguing Grant Scheme Water Records Project is the online release of the descriptions of the new collections of material, which have been created by the Project Archivist. Files from 21 different accessions have been organised into several collections based on their provenance. Work continues on arranging and describing …
Thoroton Society members view historic Bible
November 22, 2011
On Saturday 4 November, members of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire visited the University Park campus for their annual lunch. The Bishop of Southwell was guest at the dinner and gave a brief talk about the King James Bible which was first published in 1611, four hundred years ago. A copy of the 1613 printing …
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