Tri-Campus Collecting Project: Time Capsule
September 9, 2015
Time Capsule Blogs by Sarah Colborne, Archivist (Collections), Manuscripts and Special Collections Manuscripts and Special Collections need your help to enrich the University archive collections and make them more representative! Here at Manuscripts and Special Collections we support The University of Nottingham by acquiring, preserving and developing archives, manuscripts and rare books for use in teaching, research …
Watching Lady Chatterley
September 1, 2015
It’s either surprisingly chaste or shockingly racy, but fifty-five years after being the subject of an obscenity court case, the sexual content of Lady Chatterley’s Lover is once again making the news. The BBC has commissioned a one-off 90 minute version of DH Lawrence’s 1928 novel, which will air on 6th September. The sexual relationship …
Putting the ‘camp’ into ‘campus’
August 24, 2015
It’s an urban legend that’s almost as popular as the old “the library is sinking because the architect forgot to take into account the weight of the books” myth. Over the next couple of months, as new students arrive at universities up and down the country, there will be the annual resurgence of the rumour …
Monday Mysteries
August 10, 2015
Those of you who follow us on Twitter might get a sense of deja vu with the images in today’s post! For the last few weeks we have been posting some of the many ‘mystery’ photographs from our collections, in the hopes that someone may be able to shed light on who the people are. Often we …
Papplewick Pumping Station
July 27, 2015
This summer is the 10th anniversary of the re-opening of the only surviving working Victorian pumping station in the Midlands, Papplewick Pumping Station. In 1879, the Nottingham Waterworks Company built a reservoir near Papplewick, a small village just under 8 miles from Nottingham. Its purpose was to store water from Bestwood Waterworks to cope with …
Doodles and Divinity
July 20, 2015
This is a guest post by Ashleigh Fowler, student from the School of English. Since November 2014 I have been cataloguing the Ashby de la Zouch Parish Library as one of three student volunteers chosen to work on the collection. The library is, unsurprisingly, largely theological texts with a large helping of classical Greek literature, but …
A Fresh Crop of Records
July 1, 2015
There has been a flurry of new documents, books and digital files arriving at Manuscripts & Special Collections these last few weeks (is it possible to have a flurry of digital files?). Here are just a few of the two dozen or so new acquisitions we have taken in since the start of the year. Reaping …
Celebrating Magna Carta
June 15, 2015
Eight hundred years ago today, King John affixed the Great Seal to Magna Carta, after a week of intense negotiations with the group of barons who had rebelled against his reign. It is probably one of the most famous failed peace treaties in history. Like his father and older brother before him, John believed the divine …
The First Cut is the Deepest
June 11, 2015
The worst experience in Charles Cullen’s young life was very nearly overlooked. The volume in which it is recorded, Uhg O 1/1, is a Treatment Book, and is unremarkable to look at. The brown binding is battered and the pages are covered in the scrawling handwriting of an 18th century doctor, complete with ink blobs and …
How does it feel now you’ve won the war?
June 3, 2015
Guest blog by Dr Richard Gaunt It’s the name of a bridge and a railway station in London, an island in the South Shetland Islands, several townships and cities across Australia, a region in Ontario, Canada and – for good or ill – the title of the most famous song ever to have won the …
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