Revisiting the Dark Side; the archive of the University of Nottingham Gothic Society

A guest post by Anja Rohde, Secretary of GothSoc 1997/98 In September last year I started working at Manuscripts and Special Collections as a Library Assistant, and soon found out about the current initiative to collect historic and current material from University of Nottingham student societies, the Tri-Campus Contemporary Collecting Project. The project really appeals …

MRI Collections Project: Shining a light on slide digitisation

Work is now well under way on our exciting Wellcome Trust funded project ‘Development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at the University of Nottingham’, as covered in the previous blog post. Project Archivist Zoe Ellis updates us on one of the main strands of the project: the digitisation of around 18,000 35 mm slides. These …

Found: the lost archive of the Cross Country and Athletics Club

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

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 …

Looking back to get ahead: Volunteering at Manuscripts and Special Collections

This is a guest post by third-year American Studies and History student Bron Bury. Your future As a student, regardless of what stage you are at in your degree, making an conscious effort to look beyond your time in education is key in maximising your future opportunities . You may have a vague idea of …

Mind the Gaps

The search for student publications; a blog by Nicholas Blake, Library Assistant with Manuscripts and Special Collections. It’s tempting to think that students these days rely solely on the Internet and social media to disseminate information, Whatsapping, Snapchatting and Instagramming all the important news and gossip about their University lives. Yet print still has prestige, …

Notable Nottingham Alumni: Raja Azlan Shah

As the University of Nottingham prepares to welcome thousands of students for the new academic year, we look back at some notable alumni, starting with the King of Malaysia, Azlan Shah. Azlan Shah was born on 19th April 1928 in Perak, the 4th-largest state in Malaysia. He was the second son of Sultan Yussuf Izzuddin …

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 …

A Picture-Perfect Placement

Looking to get the most out of your university experience whilst learning invaluable employability skills and aiding the increasing accessibility of an expanding archive that has been around for nearly 90 years? I’m Amy Cooper, a third year English student that recently completed a placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections as a Digitisation Assistant. Here is …

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. …