Cambridge University Library Special Collections

Image of the Month

Posted on 2 March 2016 by Frank

The Manuscripts department have just published their Image of the Month for March. It can be found on their webpage.

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

Christmas in Changi – The Result!

Posted on 23 February 2016 by Emma Nichols

By Mary French and Emma Nichols Happy New Year from the Changi Conservators! Do you remember the Christmas Quiz from the Changi Guardian that we posed […]

Conservation, Royal Commonwealth Society

Closeup of one end of the UL slide rule.

The first slide rule: a discovery in the Macclesfield Collection

Posted on 19 February 2016 by Special Collections

Guest post by Boris Jardine. Slide rules dominated the practice of mathematics from their invention in reign of King Charles I to their sudden, electronic-calculator […]

Archives, Science

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

Darwin Correspondence Project launches their new website on Darwin’s birthday

Posted on 12 February 2016 by Special Collections

The Darwin Correspondence Project is celebrating ‘Darwin Day’ today (12th February) with a new website helping us to find out more about the life and […]

Archives, Darwin Correspondence Project, Digital Resources

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

On this day – The Kelmscott Beowulf

Posted on 2 February 2016 by Sophie Defrance

The tale of Beowulf [done out of the Old English tongue by William Morris and A.J. Wyatt.] was issued #OnThisDay in 1895. Cambridge […]

600th anniversary, Exhibitions

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