Inside Darwin’s bookshelves: a project to catalogue his personal library
Post by Alex Cuadrado, Darwin Library Cataloguer Charles Darwin changed how we see our place in nature, but how did he build the theories that […]
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The Reverend Richard Sheepshanks and the Euphrates Expedition
Post by Dr Samantha Evans, Assistant Archivist Towards the end of last year, I was given the task of cataloguing two banker’s boxes of early-nineteenth-century papers […]
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Michaelides Coptic papyri added to the Digital Library; a project over time
In 1977, Cambridge University Library purchased the Michaelides collection of papyrus fragments from the heirs of the late antiques-dealer Georges Anastase Michaelides (1900-1973). Born in […]
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Cambridge University Farm: a practical setting for the study of Agriculture
Eddington, on Cambridge’s north west side, is one of its newest suburbs, developed since 2013 to meet University housing needs. It extends over the former […]
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Telling tales: manuscripts, scribes, stories
A guest blog post from Linda van Rheinberg, student at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf
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Rehousing unusual objects: a challenging conservation project
Special Collections in the University Library include more than just books, manuscripts, maps and archives. The teams also look after a wide range of textual […]
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Releasing the knowledge we don’t have time to lose: collaboration between the University Museum of Zoology and Cambridge University Library
As part of the AI for Cultural Heritage Hub project (ArCH), Cambridge University Library has been collaborating with the Museum of Zoology (UMZC) to explore […]
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Endometriosis & Menstrual Health in Special Collections
This post is by Ethan Sheard, Senior Library Assistant at the Seeley Library (and Endometriosis Workplace Champion). In December 2025 the University Library hosted (at […]
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Jean Boyd: schoolteacher, educationalist and scholar of Northern Nigeria
In late 2024, Cambridge University Library accepted a tranche of papers relating to the career of the schoolteacher, educationalist and scholar Jean Boyd (1934-2022) who […]
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Shakespeare’s First Folio conserved
The University Library is very lucky to have copies of all four Shakespeare folios printed in the seventeenth century (1623, 1632, 1664 & 1685). The […]
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