To the Moon! Descriptions of Lunar Travel in the Special Collections

In 1947 a University College Nottingham student wrote an article for student newspaper The Gongster called “Operation Lunar, or, Why go to the Moon?”.  The lunar voyage is imagined as a perilous affair with little hope of the intrepid explorer returning alive, due to cosmic ray intensity, the unknown effects of zero-gravity on the body, …

Getting Political with the Archives

“Books have to be heavy because the whole world’s inside them.” ― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart This is a guest post by student placement Lizzie Fenwick, School of Politics and International Relations. Prior to signing up for a placement here, I was one of many students on campus who were not really aware that the University …

Nottingham Advantage Award Placement: Working on Westacott

This is a guest post by Sophie Burton, an undergraduate student in the Department of History. For the Nottingham Advantage Award ‘Experience Heritage’ module I have been conducting a weekly placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. The placement has informed me about the different roles within the heritage sector. I have undertaken digitisation work on …

Papers of a ‘Professional Revolutionary’

The next exhibition at Lakeside Arts Centre’s Weston Gallery features the papers of a local activist and Communist Party officer, Fred Westacott. Flyers, pamphlets and speeches in his personal archive document a lifetime of campaigning, as a supporter of a variety of local and international causes, from the Miners’ strikes to the Vietnam War protests. …