Cambridge University Library Special Collections

‘That noble cabinet’: the British Museum and its links with Cambridge

Posted on 31 March 2016 by Liam Sims

This week is Museum Week, which seems like an excellent occasion to look at books in the University Library with connections to our national museum […]

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

A springtime post

Posted on 24 March 2016 by Sophie Defrance

To celebrate spring, and the upcoming holidays, here are a few illustrations of spring flowers from our Rare Books collections. Herbarum imagines […]

Rare Books

Castles in the air: two works of Renaissance and Baroque Iberian poetry

Posted on 18 March 2016 by Sophie Defrance

Thanks to a recommendation of Dr Rodrigo Cacho, Reader in Spanish Golden Age and Colonial Studies, the Rare Books department of Cambridge University Library has […]

Collectors and collecting, Hispanic, Rare Books, Recent acquisitions, Special Collections

A Fruitful Resource : a guest post by Jonathan Spain

Posted on 16 March 2016 by Anne Taylor

The Map Department of Cambridge University Library has a collection of British estate agents’ sales particulars dating largely from the early 19th century through to the […]

Maps, 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

Lines of Thought exhibition now open!

Posted on 11 March 2016 by Special Collections

The University library’s major free public exhibition to celebrate its 600th anniversary, Lines of Thought: Discoveries that changed the world,is now open in the Milstein Exhibition […]

600th anniversary, Cambridge Digital Library

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

New old books: February 2016

Posted on 4 March 2016 by William Hale

The second instalment of our monthly series listing additions to the Rare Books collections. This month we feature Greek philosophy as read in sixteenth-century France, […]

Rare Books, Recent acquisitions