Volunteering and all that jazz

The University Photographic Collection contains an enormous number of photographs taken by the University of Nottingham and its predecessor colleges over the past 120 years. We are gradually cataloguing them with the help of students like Sophie Pegum, who volunteered at Manuscripts & Special Collections as part of a placement from the Department of Music. …

The Advantage of Volunteering

This is a guest post by Isobel Sheene, BA English and History student. It’s the age-old problem: you can’t get a job without experience, but how do you get experience without a job? Never fear – if you’re interested in a career in heritage, we have the answer: volunteering. I’m a student who recently completed …

The Sound of Lincolnshire Folk Song

The Lincolnshire Folk Song Collection was established in the early 1960s at Pilgrim College, Boston, Lincolnshire, and was transferred to Manuscripts and Special Collections in the 1990s. It has recently been given a new lease of life with the help of a student on a placement with us from the Department of Music, Lydia May. …

Discovering John Achard

This is a guest post by UoN student Megan Shore about her CLAS student placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections in March-July 2016. I did a work placement in Manuscripts and Special Collections in the last semester of my final year. I heard about the placement from the employability team in the School of Cultures …

Chimera Obscura? – The Value of the University’s Special Archive and Foreign-Language Skills

This is a guest post by UoN student George Jewitt about his CLAS student placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections in March/April 2016. If you’ve never been to King’s Meadow Campus, it’s worth a visit for a few reasons. The Costa is pretty cosy and it’s a great place to sit and do some work …

Et Maintenant Quelque Chose De Différent

Guest post by Jan Perrett MBE, volunteer at Manuscripts & Special Collections and former Deputy Director of the Careers and Employability Service at The University of Nottingham, to mark Volunteers’ Week 2016. After working for over 20 years at the University Careers and Employability Service, I decided to put more flexibility into my lifestyle by …

Mapping a Career in Conservation

This is a guest post by Kelly Grimshaw, former volunteer and University of Nottingham English graduate who approached us with an interest in a career in heritage. In the summer of 2015 I volunteered with the Manuscripts and Special Collections Department for two and a half months. I was involved in three projects: sourcing archival …

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 …

Lifting the Lid on North Wheatley Manor

My name is Hannah and I am a Masters History student at the University of Nottingham, specialising in Medieval English history. I decided to do some voluntary archive work as I am considering a career as an archivist and so applied to Manuscripts and Special Collections. My research interests mainly involve manorial documents and so I …