Ladies in the Library
January 1855. The British coalition government was in crisis over accusations of mismanagement in the Crimean war. In the literary world, the final installment of […]
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‘Our singular patron’: Thomas Cromwell and Cambridge University
TV viewers enjoying the tumultuous final episodes of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light may be interested in Thomas Cromwell’s impact on Cambridge in […]
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‘The Central Science’: records of the Chemistry Department added to the University Archives
A knowledge of molecular structures and properties is crucial in our understanding of large parts of science, from semiconductors to proteins and from the composition […]
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A crowd’s-eye view: the 1897 Cambridge vote for women’s degrees
Sea of straw hats outside the railings. Crackers &c. & then bags of flour, confetti &c. came showering down wind. Francis Jenkinson, University Librarian On […]
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Oppenheimer and the poisoned apple
This summer’s blockbuster, Oppenheimer, begins the chronological recounting of the physicist’s life in Cambridge. The recent Harvard graduate, later dubbed the ‘father of the atomic […]
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Becoming Vice-Chancellor …
Professor Deborah Prentice, the new Vice-Chancellor, assumes the duties of office on 1st July and will be formally admitted at a Congregation of the Regent […]
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A game of stones – how Cambridge acquired a cast of the Rosetta Stone
Exactly two hundred years ago, in 1822, the French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion (1790–1832) succeeded in his attempts to decipher the hieroglyphic text of the famous Rosetta […]
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Statutory safety: rebinding the Proctors’ Books
Historic volumes from outside the the University Library, intrinsic to University ceremonial, have been recent visitors to the Conservation Studio. These two books contain the […]
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Archives in the round: joining up the records of Biochemistry
Puzzling over an unidentified collection of 1920s printer’s blocks, intriguing artwork for something, has emphasised again the connections between the official records of the University and personal papers of its scientists. For the fullest picture of an institution or an individual, look both ways. The blocks, part of transfer […]
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Grounds for enthusiasm: the University Library outside
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 […]
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