The History of the Historian of Science

This is a guest post by Anna Vogt, History undergraduate. Although I am a history student, I have also always been fascinated with science, especially the ways in which the humanities and STEM subjects intersect. As such, I jumped at the opportunity to undertake a placement with Manuscripts and Special Collections working on the papers …

Plants & Prayers

Healing is what makes us human – but concepts of health and methods of healing have changed much over time. Visitors to our latest exhibition Plants and Prayers: health and healing before 1700 will see how healthcare in the past was not just the domain of the physician: priests to apothecaries to housewives all provided …

History of the James Cameron-Gifford Library, Sutton Bonington Campus.

Dr James Cameron-Gifford was a leading agriculturalist born in 1909.  He first came to Nottingham in 1942 when he was appointed as Technical Officer with the Nottingham War Agricultural Committee.  The object of the committee was to increase the county’s food production, and among the many tasks allotted to Cameron-Gifford was the development of a …

Documenting the pandemic and beyond: website captures for the University Archives available to view

This is a post by Laura Peaurt, Digital Preservation Officer and Sarah Colborne, Archivist (Collections). Capture and Preservation  In a previous blog we discussed using Preservica, our digital preservation platform, to successfully capture websites and social media for the archive. This is known as web archiving.  The tools provided by the platform allow us to …

Adult Education and Workers’ Control

This is a guest post by Tony Simpson, from the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and Spokesman Books. The ‘Knowledge is Power’ exhibition at Weston Gallery celebrates the University of Nottingham’s Adult Education Department. In the wake of the First World War, the Ministry of Reconstruction established a special committee which, in its final report in …

The Ken Coates collection – the coal mining industry and its decline in Nottinghamshire

This is a guest blog post by Law student Ceyhan Ballioglu, who undertook a placement with Manuscripts and Special Collection in 2022. During the Autumn semester of my second year at the University of Nottingham, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Manuscripts and Special Collections Department. Here, I was given the chance to …

Advocates for animal welfare

Work has just finished on an 18-month project to catalogue papers held by Manuscripts and Special Collections which chart the progress made in promoting the concept of the Three Rs, the guiding principles of Reduction, Replacement and Refinement, in regards to the use of animals in scientific research. The work was made possible by a …

Experiencing Adult Education at Nottingham

This is a guest post by Mark Gilman, Professor of Economics at the University of Derby. Knowledge, Power and Class are words close to my heart. As a working-class lad who left school on a Friday in June 1976 and started work on the Monday, with little formal qualification, education left me feeling as though …

Discovering the digital: Developing born digital access 

This is a post by Laura Peaurt, Digital Preservation Officer. Today we celebrate World Digital Preservation Day. The theme for this year’s event is ‘Data for All, For Good, Forever’, and this event is a chance for us to reflect on our work within Manuscripts and Special Collections to collect, preserve and make accessible our …

One hundred years on: New types of University and new possibilities for lifelong education?

This is a guest post by Dr Iain Jones, Honorary Assistant Professor at University of Nottingham. From 27 October 2022 – 12 March 2023, Lakeside Arts is hosting an exhibition ‘Knowledge is Power: Class, Community, and Adult Education’ and a series of lunchtime talks. The University established the first Department of Adult Education in 1920 …