Treasures of the University Library: don’t miss out!

Would you like the opportunity to come face-to-face with some of the most precious items from Cambridge University Library’s collections?

To celebrate our 600^th anniversary, to mark the beginning of the new academic year and to celebrate the breadth and depth of our collections, Cambridge University Library is hosting a series of curator-led talks to show off some of its treasures – all objects of spectacular beauty, rarity and historical or cultural significance.

Besides the 8 million books, journals and other items it holds as a legal deposit library, Cambridge University Library also encompasses tens of thousands of unique and irreplaceable items in its Special Collections.  Many of these are being digitised and are available to view in full on the Cambridge Digital Library – but nothing beats seeing them in the flesh, right?

Every Tuesday and Thursday throughout October, one of our expert curators will showcase a single object from the University Library’s collection.  This is your chance to hear at first hand about how they were made, who owned them, how they have survived, and why they are essential to our study of human civilization across the centuries.

The talks are free and open to anyone registered as a reader at the University Library.  No booking is required; just turn up!

They will be held in the North Reading Room at Cambridge University Library, at 10am and then repeated at 12pm and 2pm.  Each will last approximately 10 minutes, with time afterwards to take a closer look at the object and ask questions.  Here’s a taster of what’s in store:

Tuesday 4^th October: A choir book fit for a king (Anna Pensaert, Music)

Thursday 6^th October: Views of the Beagle expedition (Alison Pearn, Darwin Correspondence Project)

Tuesday 11^th October: An early printed map of Cambridgeshire (Anne Taylor, Maps)

Thursday 13^th October: A schoolbook for Chinese emperors (Charles Aylmer, East Asian)

Tuesday 18^th October: To be confirmed (Yasmin Faghihi, Near/Middle Eastern)

Thursday 20^th October: A thousand-year-old bilingual psalter (James Freeman, Medieval Manuscripts)

Tuesday 25^th October: A fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Melonie Schmierer-Lee, Genizah Research Unit)

Thursday 27^th October: The first book printed in the West (Emily Dourish, Rare Books)

For regular updates and reminders, follow us on Twitter @theUL and #ULTreasures