Manuscripts & Special Collections Achieves National Accreditation

The New Year is off to a good start for Manuscripts and Special Collections, which is delighted to have been awarded Archive Service Accreditation by The National Archives. Mark Dorrington, Keeper of Manuscripts & Special Collections, explains what this means.     Accreditation is the UK quality standard which recognises good performance in all areas of archive …

Happy birthday KMC!

Happy 10th birthday to us! Ten years ago today, the Reading Room at The University of Nottingham’s then-newest campus at King’s Meadow welcomed its first visitors. The Basement     Since 1973, Manuscripts & Special Collections had been based in the lower level of Hallward Library on University Park Campus. The lack of space had been a …

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 …

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 …

Tri-Campus Contemporary Collecting

Good luck to all students sitting exams! Although you may feel like recycling the lot when it is all over, Manuscripts and Special Collections would like you to spare a thought for the material you might have accumulated which would make a good addition to the University Archives. Whether you’re vacating your room in halls, fleeing a …

Grand Tourists and Others: exhibition opens

Intrepid explorer, Levison Wood, author of Walking the Himalayas and University of Nottingham History graduate (2004), journeyed to Nottingham Lakeside Arts to open Manuscripts and Special Collections’ latest exhibition Grand Tourists and Others: Travelling Abroad Before the 20th Century. The exhibition, curated by Levison’s former tutor Dr Ross Balzaretti (School of Humanities), takes the visitor on a …

The life and times of a Victorian gentleman in Nottingham

This is a guest post by Matt Heald, volunteer and Document Production Assistant at Manuscripts & Special Collections. When I began my time as a volunteer with the department of Manuscripts and Special Collections in November 2013, my first task was catalogue and summarise diaries and letters of William Parsons, solicitor of Nottingham, whose entries …

Back to the Future: Time Travelling with the University Time Capsule

The countdown is on to the date that Marty McFly and Doc Brown went ‘Back to the Future’ in the sequel to the classic Universal film. But as all archivists and historians know, you don’t need a souped-up DeLorean to travel through time. Imagine being transported back to your parents’ teenage years? That’s just what it’s like …

Spotlight on Slavery

Today is Anti-Slavery Day in the UK, which was established to raise awareness of the estimated 20 million people worldwide currently living in slavery. This year also sees the 150th anniversary of the formal abolition of slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment to the Constitution declaring that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the …