MRI Collections Project: Sir Peter Mansfield’s Patents and Academic Papers

One of the most interesting parts of the MRI project is cataloguing the papers of Sir Peter Mansfield which have been donated to Manuscripts and Special Collections.  These relate mostly to his professional life, although there is also a small quantity of personal papers.  The largest parts of the collection are published academic papers and …

MRI project gets under way

This is a guest post by Zoe Ellis, MRI Project Archivist. Manuscripts and Special Collections recently started work on an exciting 12 month project entitled ‘Development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at the University of Nottingham’.  This project is funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Resources award of just under £100,000. The project will catalogue, …

The Cotton Research Corporation Library

The Cotton Research Corporation’s papers and library of printed materials came to the University of Nottingham Library in the 1970s. During its institutional history the Corporation increasingly abandoned direct involvement in cotton growing projects and directed its attention toward research, building up a library of printed materials. Now in the process of being catalogued, the …

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Have you ever been asked what period in time you would want to live in if you could time-travel? Ever answered with the Victorian period? If yes, then great you’ll like this blog. If not, then still read on because my blog is also about my placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections as a Cataloguing …

1977-2017: 40 years of the Queen’s Medical Centre

On 28th July 1977, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened The Queen’s Medical Centre, the first specifically-built teaching hospital in the UK. This marked her Silver Jubilee. Manuscripts and Special Collections holds a number of the hospital’s papers and photographs, including those relating to the opening event, which were acquired in October 2012. The University …

Ken Loach, Ken Coates and the European Union

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 …

Volunteering and all that jazz

The University Photographic Collection contains an enormous number of photographs taken by the University of Nottingham and its predecessor colleges over the past 120 years. We are gradually cataloguing them with the help of students like Sophie Pegum, who volunteered at Manuscripts & Special Collections as part of a placement from the Department of Music. …

The Sound of Lincolnshire Folk Song

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. …

Discovering John Achard

This is a guest post by UoN student Megan Shore about her CLAS student placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections in March-July 2016. I did a work placement in Manuscripts and Special Collections in the last semester of my final year. I heard about the placement from the employability team in the School of Cultures …

The life and times of a Victorian gentleman in Nottingham

This is a guest post by Matt Heald, volunteer and Document Production Assistant at Manuscripts & Special Collections. When I began my time as a volunteer with the department of Manuscripts and Special Collections in November 2013, my first task was catalogue and summarise diaries and letters of William Parsons, solicitor of Nottingham, whose entries …