Time with Lawrence – a student from Malaysia campus on her archive placement

This is a guest post by Yunyu, a student from the University of Nottingham’s Malaysia campus who recently completed a volunteer placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections working on the uncatalogued papers of John Worthen, a world renowned D.H. Lawrence expert and former member of staff at UoN. Yunyu’s placement concentrated on Worthen’s work as …

Handling History – a recent archive placement

This is a guest post by Jessica Reynolds, who volunteered at Manuscripts and Special Collections between February and March 2024, as part of the Faculty of Arts placement scheme. Working as a volunteer at the University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections felt like working as a Detective! Whilst on the Arts Faculty Placement module, …

Cataloguing History: Time with the Manvers Collection

This is a guest post by Andy Judson, a student volunteer studying towards a PhD in History at University of Nottingham. He recently completed a 60-day placement funded by the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partership and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The placement engaged him to work with part of the extensive Manvers Collection, …

Working with the Coventry Patmore Collection

This is a guest blog by School of English Placement student Louise Roberts, who in 2023 worked on cataloguing additional papers of Coventry Patmore (1823-1896) When learning about Victorian literature, there is no doubt that Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel of the House will be mentioned as one of the most influential pieces of literature …

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 …

My experience interning for Manuscripts and Special Collections

This is a guest post by Helena, who successfully applied for a Faculty of Arts funded summer work experience placement. I’m Helena, a second-year History student at the University of Nottingham and I had the amazing experience of getting a placement and working at King’s Meadow Campus for a couple of weeks. My role was …

Sealed Knot

This is a guest post by George Davis, 3rd year undergraduate at UoN. As a Third-Year History student, working on the Sealed Knot collection has been a brilliant opportunity to learn more about archiving and experience working directly with primary material. My role was to work my way through each document in the collection, create …

Colonialism in Correspondence: The Letters of Lord William Bentinck

This is a guest post by English student Ben, written as part of his placement with the Nottingham Advantage Award from the UoN Careers and Employability Service. The letters of Lord William Bentinck, from the Portland Collection at the University of  Nottingham, contain many details of the governorship of India in the early 19th century. …

Planning the Trent Building

Guest blog by Emelia Dengel and Oliver Lack, Geography undergraduates who completed a work placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. For our placement at MSC we were tasked with cataloguing and repackaging a group of over 150 architectural and engineering plans of Trent Building dating from the 1920s to the 1990s. The Trent Building opened …

Dog Island

This is a guest post by Geography PhD student placement Robert Frost. My placement started in October 2019 with the aim of looking at the Engineers’ Files of the water drainage records in the University’s Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSC). These covered the predecessor bodies of the Severn Trent Water Authority, including the Trent Catchment …