Library history – Page 2 – Cambridge University Library Special Collections

The Pilgrims’ tale: the box that moved the Library

Posted on 22 October 2021 by Jill Whitelock

Eighty-seven years ago today, on 22 October 1934, George V arrived in Cambridge to open the new University Library. It was a day of huge […]

Library history

The abandoned library

Posted on 7 May 2021 by Jill Whitelock

On 7 May 1921, a hundred years ago today, the University of Cambridge took a momentous decision. After decades of debate and controversy, it finally […]

Library history

Grounds for enthusiasm: the University Library outside

Posted on 7 May 2021 by Jacky Cox

The appearance mid-April of foodPark. in front of the UL is only the most recent innovative use of the grounds in a crisis. During World War II, the need to keep people fed and the […]

Archives, Cambridge University Archives, Cambridge University history, Library history, Uncategorized, World War Two

A delight in Turkish: E. J. W. Gibb and his library

Posted on 23 February 2021 by Catherine Ansorge

Elias Gibb was a rather private and reclusive man of scholarship, but his contribution to Turkish studies in the form of translations and discussions of […]

Archives, Collectors and collecting, Library history, Near and Middle Eastern, Rare Books

Word & image in a sixteenth-century prayer book

Posted on 8 February 2021 by Liam Sims

We all put things in books. Whether it’s bookmarks (old train tickets, receipts or some other bit of paper no longer required), related ephemera (magazine […]

Collectors and collecting, Illustration, Library history, Rare Books, Special Collections

‘Thousands of little loose papers without any order at all’: Material signs and afterlives in the UL’s earliest Arabic acquisitions

Posted on 12 June 2020 by Special Collections

In the second in a series of guest posts by UL researchers, Samantha Brown shares her work on the materiality and afterlives of the manuscripts […]

Archives, Collectors and collecting, Library history, Manuscripts, Special Collections

M. R. James and the ghosts of the old University Library

Posted on 22 October 2019 by Jill Whitelock

‘Wisdom will not expect the men of my generation or of several later ones to leave without a sore pang of regret the old home […]

Archives, Library history

Henry Bradshaw – his quaker connection

Posted on 14 October 2019 by Special Collections

Post by Emily Perdue In my previous blog entry, I described a group of letters associated with William Allen, and other Quaker reformers, in the […]

Archives, Library history, Manuscripts

Giovanni Belzoni and his ‘Book of breathings’

Posted on 6 September 2019 by Catherine Ansorge

In Ancient Egyptian culture, matters relating to death and the afterlife were of great significance, as both the body and the soul were believed to […]

Collectors and collecting, Library history, Manuscripts, Near and Middle Eastern, Papyrus, Special Collections, Travel