Category: Special Collections

A binding for the organist John Bull (1562/3-1628)

Posted on 12 March 2016 by Liam Sims

The virtuoso composer, musician and organ builder John Bull (who probably spent some time at the University of Cambridge) died on this day in 1628. […]

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

Cambridge Science Festival at the University Library

Posted on 8 March 2016 by Special Collections

Cambridge Science Festival started yesterday and over the next two weeks, the city will be even more than usually full of inventions, discoveries and experiments. […]

600th anniversary, Archives, Digital Resources, Events, Exhibitions, Historical Printing, Library history, Manuscripts, Maps, Medicine, Music, Science, Special Collections

How (and when) to visit the Fitzwilliam museum…in the 1850s.

Posted on 26 February 2016 by Sophie Defrance

Many of you will have seen that the Fitzwilliam museum turned 200 earlier this month. How would visitors born, like the museum, 200 years ago, […]

Rare Books, Special Collections

Malthus in Cambridge

Posted on 13 February 2016 by Liam Sims

On this day in 1766 – 250 years ago – was born Thomas Robert Malthus, for whom bells rang out in Cambridge yesterday. A scholar, cleric and […]

600th anniversary, Collectors and collecting, Library history, Rare Books, Special Collections

A. N. L. Munby’s Christmas ghost stories

Posted on 25 December 2015 by Liam Sims

A. N. L. ‘Tim’ Munby (1913-1974), who has featured on these pages before, has at least two connections with Christmas. Most importantly, he was born […]

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

Christmas cookery in the University Library

Posted on 15 December 2015 by Liam Sims

Cookery books are not, as one might expect, a modern phenomenon. Before Nigella, Delia and the great Fanny Cradock taught us all how to make […]

Christmas, Collectors and collecting, Incunabula, Manuscripts, Rare Books, Special Collections

Collecting for the University Library

Posted on 11 December 2015 by Special Collections

This guest post is written by Cliff Webb, a generous donor to the Library in recent years. Since leaving Cambridge I have spent some 40 […]

Collectors and collecting, Rare Books, Special Collections

Cambridge connections: Trinity Hall and the University Library

Posted on 3 December 2015 by Liam Sims

About sixty years before the University had its own purpose-built library, William Bateman (Bishop of Norwich) founded Trinity Hall in Cambridge. It remains one of […]

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