Beyond the Reading Room: 5 Minutes With Debbie Crookes

It’s 10 years this month that Manuscripts & Special Collections moved to King’s Meadow Campus! Many people have visited the Reading Room over the years, but this is only a small part of the department. As part of the celebrations, we’re giving you a look at what goes on Beyond the Reading Room, starting with… …

Dead Man Found in Coffin

What are Horseshoehead, Purples, Tissick, and Rising of the Lights?  If you guessed along the lines of an equestrian accident, a colour, a small village in the Home Counties, and perhaps an indie band on the verge of greatness, then you’d be very wrong. These are just a few of the bizarre-sounding medical conditions that …

Colin Wilson Conference

On Friday 1 July, 60 researchers, fans and family members of the late Colin Wilson travelled to KMC to attend the 1st International Colin Wilson Conference. It was a truly an international affair, as delegates had come from as far afield as America, Australia and even West Bridgford. The extensive archive of the Leicester-born novelist …

Top 10 Tips: Visiting Manuscripts & Special Collections (pt 2)

Exams are over; the next semester doesn’t start for several months; and the sun is shining (possibly). For final-year dissertation students and academics it can only mean one thing: it’s time to start planning summer research trips to the archive. Hopefully these Top Tips will help first-time visitors to Manuscripts & Special Collections, although some of …

Catching ‘The Flying Fish’

The University of Nottingham has recently acquired an important literary manuscript written by the author D H Lawrence. ‘The Flying Fish’ is an unfinished short story written by Lawrence in March 1925 during a stay in Mexico City. It tells the story of an Englishman in Mexico who is called back to his ancestral home …

Top 10 Tips: Visiting Manuscripts & Special Collections (pt 1)

Exams are over; next semester doesn’t start for several months; and the sun is shining (it is somewhere!). For final-year dissertation students and academics it can only mean one thing: it’s time to start planning summer research trips to the archive. Hopefully these Top Tips will help first-time visitors to Manuscripts & Special Collections, although some …

Chimera Obscura? – The Value of the University’s Special Archive and Foreign-Language Skills

This is a guest post by UoN student George Jewitt about his CLAS student placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections in March/April 2016. If you’ve never been to King’s Meadow Campus, it’s worth a visit for a few reasons. The Costa is pretty cosy and it’s a great place to sit and do some work …

Et Maintenant Quelque Chose De Différent

Guest post by Jan Perrett MBE, volunteer at Manuscripts & Special Collections and former Deputy Director of the Careers and Employability Service at The University of Nottingham, to mark Volunteers’ Week 2016. After working for over 20 years at the University Careers and Employability Service, I decided to put more flexibility into my lifestyle by …

Happy Anniversary, Russian & Slavonic Studies!

Did you know that Russian has been taught at Nottingham for 100 years? The academic year 1915/16 saw the very first students enrolled on Russian language courses at what was then University College Nottingham. It began with one member of staff on a temporary contract to try to encourage the study of Russian, and led to the founding of …

Nottingham Blitz

Seventy-five years ago today, Nottingham residents emerged from their shelters into daylight to survey the devastation caused by an air raid and anxiously find out whether their friends and family were safe. For some, their worst fears were realised. Over 150 people were killed in the ‘Nottingham Blitz’, with several hundred more injured and over …