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 Feminist Publications Collection

This is a guest post by Amelia Andrews, a University of Nottingham student, who recently completed a Summer Research Placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections Hundreds of magazines, newspapers and newsletters from the late 20th century Women’s Liberation Movement have been donated to University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections department. Ahead of the upcoming …

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 …

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. …

Carry on Collecting: Tri Campus contemporary collecting during lockdown

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 …

Putting it in Perspective

Guest post by Chloé Havez (3rd year Politics & International Relations undergraduate student) The title of a 1992 newspaper clipping on Coates’ criticism of the European Parliament quarrelling over where the European Environment Agency should have been built during the alarmist trend of ozone depletion is of unfortunate relevance today thirty years on, and could …

Mapping Modules

This is a guest post by Sasha Gardner, undergraduate student undertaking a placement to identify rare books and archives useful for students taking modules in Classics and English. As a first-year English student, discovering the vast array of books and journals available at Hallward and other libraries on campus was an exciting moment. But many …

War work in the water archives

This is a guest post by Geography student placement Natalia O’Cleirigh The University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections holds a collection of resources from the River Trent Catchment Board. I was tasked with cataloguing a section of the archive as part of my placement which focused on the Engineers’ files. The organisation was responsible …

Spooky Scary Skeletons

Guest post by Anja Rohde, Library Assistant. On Wednesday 27th January 1943 Nottingham students awoke to an unusual sight – a skeleton was suspended from the clock tower of the Trent Building. This was ‘Mrs Criker’, one of the mascots of Goldsmiths College, London, and it had been kidnapped by Nottingham students. At the start …

Schooling in the Third Reich

This is a guest post by student placement Vanessa. Manuscripts and Special Collections is a section of the University of Nottingham Libraries located on the University’s King’s Meadow Campus. The archive holds over 3 ½ million original and unique documents in over 700 manuscript and archives collections, dating from the 12th to the 21st century, …