George Green Library: Then and Now
June 18, 2024
To commemorate 60 years since the opening of George Green Library, Tracey O’Sullivan, Library Advisor, shares her memories and photographs from working there since 1985. Imagine the scene: no computers, no mobile phones, no Wi-Fi, no laptops, no self-service machines, just lots of books, journals and the like; card index cabinets and photocopier machines that …
A Peek Behind the Iron Curtain
March 19, 2024
This is a guest post by Samantha Brinded, a volunteer at Manuscripts and Special Collections. Several months ago, upon expressing my interest in volunteering for the archives, I received an email inviting me to contribute to a project involving the School of Geography. The task would involve collating metadata for hundreds of slides, and subsequently …
Images of India
June 24, 2021
Around 100 years ago, Professor Henry Hurd Swinnerton learned that 300 old glass plate negatives were about to be thrown out. Glass plate negatives are thin sheets of fragile glass coated in light-sensitive chemicals, and by the late 1930s they were becoming obsolete. These particular negatives of 19th century India were a little damaged and …
Carry on Collecting: Tri Campus contemporary collecting during lockdown
April 27, 2020
Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSC) may be WFH and unable to access the collections in our manuscripts store, but we’re still busy improving our catalogues, promoting our resources, and we’re also still busy sourcing material to add to our archives. The University’s new digital preservation system allows us to manage and preserve digital items such …
Monday Mystery: Celebrity Scrapbook, 19th century style
February 3, 2020
The Manvers family of Holme Pierrpont were one of the most influential families in Nottinghamshire in the second half of the 19th century. The men held high-ranking positions in various Army regiments, served as local MPs, and held other important civic offices, such as magistrates or Master of the Hunt. The archives we hold very …
Look at our new Digital Gallery!
August 8, 2019
Around 1,500 digitised images from our collections are now available on the Manuscripts and Special Collections Digital Gallery. We have arranged the photographs, cartoons, portraits, maps, manuscripts, and pages from books into collections based on themes. These themes can be browsed from the front page of the Digital Gallery. Click the thumbnail to get to …
MRI Collections Project: Shining a light on slide digitisation
November 30, 2018
Work is now well under way on our exciting Wellcome Trust funded project ‘Development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at the University of Nottingham’, as covered in the previous blog post. Project Archivist Zoe Ellis updates us on one of the main strands of the project: the digitisation of around 18,000 35 mm slides. These …
Wish You Were Here
March 26, 2018
British Summer Time is here and the sun is shining – for the moment, anyway – and many people are looking forward to getting away for a short break over Easter, or a longer one in the summer. Prior to the twentieth century, holidays were the preserve of the upper classes. Overseas travel was prohibitively …
Looking back to get ahead: Volunteering at Manuscripts and Special Collections
January 8, 2018
This is a guest post by third-year American Studies and History student Bron Bury. Your future As a student, regardless of what stage you are at in your degree, making an conscious effort to look beyond your time in education is key in maximising your future opportunities . You may have a vague idea of …
A Picture-Perfect Placement
June 2, 2017
Looking to get the most out of your university experience whilst learning invaluable employability skills and aiding the increasing accessibility of an expanding archive that has been around for nearly 90 years? I’m Amy Cooper, a third year English student that recently completed a placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections as a Digitisation Assistant. Here is …
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