Decoding Images in Early Modern Print
November 8, 2024
This is guest blog by Tom Nixon-Roworth, who recently undertook a three-month WRoCAH-funded Research and Employability Project (REP) on the Parish Library Collections, in which he reflects on his experience working at Manuscripts and Special Collections. It may come as no surprise to learn that as soon as the project was confirmed I was eagerly …
Exploring the Archives: A summer placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections
October 31, 2024
This is a guest post by Arwen Jenkins, a University of Nottingham student, who recently completed a Summer Research Placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. How does working in archives and with manuscripts go when you’ve had no prior experience? For so many humanities students, analysing and exploring primary sources are essential parts of our …
How to do a Scoping Survey at Manuscripts and Special Collections
August 16, 2024
This is a guest post by Hannah Kane, a University of Nottingham student, who recently completed a Summer Research Placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. What is a Scoping Survey? A scoping survey involves identifying and checking material to establish its relevance to your research topic. In my case, another undergraduate student and I completed …
Feminist Footnotes
August 9, 2024
This is a guest post by Chiara Rebora, a University of Nottingham student, who recently completed a Summer Research Placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. Expectations of my role? When I began this placement, I felt under-qualified and completely out of my comfort zone. I had to remind myself I was selected for this placement …
Gardens, Graveyards and Gladiators: A Victorian Journey through Italy
July 31, 2024
The sun’s out, school’s out – it’s holiday season once again! This summer, join 19th century tourists from the East Midlands as they travel through Europe and beyond in our series of blogs in the run up to Heritage Open Day, which this year will explore the theme ‘Routes – Networks – Connections’! In this …
The day Mahatma Gandhi came to Beeston
July 15, 2024
On 17 October 1931 crowds gathered at the small railway station in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. It was a chilly afternoon, but that did not dampen the excited anticipation of the spectators. When they eventually saw him disembarking from the train, the watchers fell silent, curious. Clad in loincloth and sandals, with a shawl to protect him …
Dead End? Tunnels under Nottingham in fact and fiction
June 28, 2024
Considering the number of manmade caves which lie beneath the streets of Nottingham, it is unsurprising that, over the years, a tangled web of stories has developed which imagines a secret network of tunnels beneath the city. The details vary, with passages variously linking the city centre, the castle, and Wollaton Hall or running instead …
The phoenix in early modern print woodcuts
June 4, 2024
This blog post was written by our Special Collections Librarian in the course of her work on an upcoming exhibition at the Old Rectory Museum, Loughborough, where facsimiles of books from the Loughborough Parish Library collection will be displayed. The early Christian writer St Isidore of Seville described the phoenix in his Etymologies: ‘The phoenix …
A Painter and A Petition
May 9, 2024
In late 1841, Henry Pelham-Clinton, 4th Duke of Newcastle, received an unusual request in the post, comprising of a letter and petition from a man named as Thomas J. Williams asking for financial support to attend the Royal Academy in London, in order to hone his talents as a painter. In the petition, which is …
Discovering Iceland with the Benedikz Collection
April 9, 2024
The University of Nottingham may seem like an unlikely home for a treasure trove of Icelandic literature, but, nonetheless, in 1998 we welcomed the Benedikz collection: an assemblage of Old Icelandic sagas, poetry and travel books which greatly enhanced our pre-existing holdings of Norse, Icelandic and Viking literature. So, how did this remarkable acquisition come …
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