Category: Rare Books

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 pipeline from heaven: eight centuries of Dominican books

Posted on 8 February 2016 by John Wells

In 2016 Dominican friars celebrate the 800th anniversary of the foundation of their order. To mark the event, Cambridge University Library is hosting A pipeline […]

Exhibitions, Manuscripts, Rare Books

New old books: January 2016

Posted on 1 February 2016 by William Hale

The Rare Books Department of the Library purchases over 200 printed books each year to enhance its historical collections. In the first of what we […]

Poetry, Rare Books, Recent acquisitions

The Signal: the magazine of the brave

Posted on 28 January 2016 by Agnieszka Drabek-Prime

We have a new collection coming to Rare Books. It will take some time before it will be available to see in our reading room, […]

Collectors and collecting, Rare Books, Recent acquisitions

Friends of the University Library event: Archbishop Matthew Parker, patron of bookbinding

Posted on 27 January 2016 by William Hale

On Wednesday, 3rd February, Professor Mirjam Foot, Emeritus Professor of Library & Archive Studies at University College, London, will give a talk for the Friends […]

Friends of Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts, Rare Books

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

His royal favour: science, communication and livres d’apparat.

Posted on 18 December 2015 by Sophie Defrance

The current exhibition His royal favour: The books that built the Library celebrates the outstanding collection of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, (1646–1714). Bought by King […]

Exhibitions, French, Rare Books