Darwin's beans, Hawking's archive and revealing the secrets of the ancient world...
We've made it to the end of another momentous year. Over the last 12 months we dived into some extraordinary stories; from the strange and bizarre objects sent to Charles Darwin, to welcoming the late Professor Stephen Hawking's archive to the University Library, or unearthing the secrets held within some of our most ancient manuscripts...
Scroll on to revisit some of our favourite stories from 2021.
Secrets of University collections to be revealed
We started off the year with the announcement that we would be one of the Cambridge institutions to benefit from £3m from the AHRC's Capability for Collections Fund to invest in equipment and refurbishment that will enable researchers from across the UK and worldwide to undertake new research into its heritage collections.
Imaging at the UL
Imaging at the UL
Maps, Maps, glorious maps
Map of Cambridge by George Braun from 1574. Credit: Alice the Camera
Map of Cambridge by George Braun from 1574. Credit: Alice the Camera
You can literally travel the world in this story. Our Map Department holds 1.3 million maps covering the entire global - and beyond - as well as more than 40,000 atlases and books on cartography.
From hand-drawn Portolan sea charts to historical maps of Cambridge and The Fens, to huge cloth maps of Burma (now Myanmar) - the largest of which measures 405 x 259 cm and may well be the largest single item in the Cambridge Digital Library!
GHOST WORDS: READING THE PAST
In March we launched our first exhibition since the pandemic began. Ghost Words brings to life the hidden words buried in some of our oldest manuscripts - known as palimpsests.
“There is something to interest everyone: Christian and Jewish palimpsests in half a dozen different languages, on manuscripts dating back to Late Antiquity (the earliest is 5th c.), some of the rarest manuscripts of their type.”
Star objects included the 8th century Codex Zacynthius, one of only two known copies of the Hexapla, a single leaf from the Archimedes Palimpsest, and the famous Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest.
Codex Zacynthius in the exhibition
Codex Zacynthius in the exhibition
Hawking archive comes home
Professor Hawking pictured outside the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. Credit: Andre Pattenden
Professor Hawking pictured outside the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. Credit: Andre Pattenden
In May we were incredibly excited to announce that, the UL would become home to Professor Stephen Hawking's scientific archive.
The arrival of the archive at the University Library means that three of the most important science archives of all time – those of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking – are now housed under one roof.
Signed Star Terk and The Simpsons memorabilia. Credit: Cambridge University Library
Signed Star Terk and The Simpsons memorabilia. Credit: Cambridge University Library
Among the thousands of pages of archive material are manuscripts, typescripts and proofs for scientific papers and research, including those written in collaboration or in correspondence with some of the greatest minds of 20th and 21st century theoretical physics, such as Nobel Prize winners Kip Thorne and Sir Roger Penrose.
The archive also contains letters dating from 1944-2008, his assistants’ notebooks, a list of set phrases for his speech synthesiser, as well as film and TV scripts, such as Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything and the iconic sci-fi series The X-Files.
Dr Jessica Gardner, Cambridge University Librarian and Dr Katarina Dean, Keeper of Archives and Modern Manuscripts, study the archive.
Dr Jessica Gardner, Cambridge University Librarian and Dr Katarina Dean, Keeper of Archives and Modern Manuscripts, study the archive.
A letter written by the young Stephen Hawking to his father. Credit: Cambridge University Library
A letter written by the young Stephen Hawking to his father. Credit: Cambridge University Library
An extract from one of The Simpsons scripts, with Professor Hawking's lines highlighted. Credit: 20th Century Fox
An extract from one of The Simpsons scripts, with Professor Hawking's lines highlighted. Credit: 20th Century Fox
Transcribing together
Oliver Rackham working in the White Mountains of Crete 19 July 2008. Credit: Jennifer Moody
Oliver Rackham working in the White Mountains of Crete 19 July 2008. Credit: Jennifer Moody
First launched in April 2020 with the aim of transcribing digitised material that does not have any existing research project to do so, the Transcribing Together project was kick-started with a collection of nearly 400 small notebooks used by ecologist Oliver Rackham.
Madingley Wood, includes printout of a photo of a tree from December 1950 and he notes which branches are still there. Credit: The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Madingley Wood, includes printout of a photo of a tree from December 1950 and he notes which branches are still there. Credit: The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
So far, around a quarter (86 notebooks) have been transcribed with 47 participants helping.
“This project has been a perfect occupation for me during the pandemic. I have felt useful and productively occupied while staying at home. But I can’t see myself abandoning it even when restrictions on movement are lifted, though my progress might be slower,” said one of the volunteers, Fay Bendall.
Opening archives to thousands
In the last 12 months we launched a new discovery platform for archives held at the University Library and across the city. The platform allows a global audience of students, local historians, and academic researchers to explore the wealth of archives held in the city.
Grant of Arms to the University of Cambridge
Grant of Arms to the University of Cambridge
ArchiveSearch contains an impressive amount of data. There are 788,539 published records available to users.
With an increasing focus on digital research, which has accelerated in the pandemic, it was important to be able to find and link to complementary digital collections - for example Darwin letters available in Cambridge Digital Library and transcriptions on the Darwin Correspondence Project website.
Mark Purcell, Deputy Director, Research Collections, at Cambridge University Library, said: “This infrastructure will help identify archival collections to support collaborative, collections-based research and engagement across the University.”
Credit: Sian Collins. Kitten pawprints on a document from the Ely Diocesan records.
Credit: Sian Collins. Kitten pawprints on a document from the Ely Diocesan records.
Darwin's squeaky beans
Sound on! A kidney bean having a clean
Sound on! A kidney bean having a clean
Who would have thought a little kidney bean having a clean would create such a stir? Even the BBC couldn't help themselves!
With some 200,000 views on social media, our squeaky beans are part of a collection of 106 specimens and other objects posted to Darwin by his many correspondents, from across the UK and as far afield as Brazil.
These objects range from flowers and beans to microscopic pollen grains, beard hair, feathers, chalk, butterfly wings to larval insect casings. All are due to be digitised in 2022 and all need specialist care to ensure they are safely preserved for generations to come.
The Darwin Correspondence Project locate and research letters written by and to the evolutionary scientist, Charles Darwin (1809–1882), and publish complete transcripts together with contextual notes and articles.
Darwin’s letters are an essential resource for understanding the development of his own ideas, and are an important source for the lives and work of more than 2,000 correspondents and others mentioned in the letters.
Caricatures of the
Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune (1870-71)
Six large volumes of around 1100 caricatures, mostly produced during the two sieges of Paris and widely distributed as coloured lithographs have been digitised and are available on the Cambridge Digital Library.
The relaxation of censorship after the fall of the Second French Empire led to the flourishing of satirical drawings.
The Cambridge prints were assembled in Paris shortly after the events, then brought to London, where several sets entitled "Collection de caricatures et de charges pour servir à l'histoire de la guerre et de la révolution de 1870-71" were compiled and subsequently sold or donated to different institutions.
Drawing Cambridgeshire
The Leper Chapel, Stourbridge, Cambridge from 1818. Credit: Cambridge Antiquarian Society/Cambridge University Library
The Leper Chapel, Stourbridge, Cambridge from 1818. Credit: Cambridge Antiquarian Society/Cambridge University Library
A collection of drawings by local amateur artist Richard Relhan, showing the history of Cambridgeshire, was added to the Cambridge Digital Library this summer.
The drawings, mainly of local buildings and countryside, date from 1797-1838 and are an impressive record of buildings and landscapes that were soon to go through expansive change.
His topographical drawings capture a time just before the Victorian restoration – the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals which took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria.
BOOK OF DEER to go on loan in SCOTLAND
Figure with halo and satchel. Credit: Cambridge University Library
Figure with halo and satchel. Credit: Cambridge University Library
The Book of Deer, possibly Scotland’s oldest surviving manuscript, is set to return to the north-east of Scotland for the first time in 1,000 years when it goes on loan from Cambridge University Library next year.
The manuscript, which came to the UL in 1715, is a small manuscript containing the text of the gospels in Latin which has been dated to the first half of the tenth century. It was produced for private use rather than for church services.
It contains the oldest surviving example of written Scots Gaelic in the world within its margins. At the start of each gospel text is a full-page illustration of a human figure or figures.
cONSERVATION STORIES
Our Polonsky Greek team took us behind the scenes with some fantastic story-telling, from the journeys our manuscripts have taken to get here, to the tools of the trade.
Marks of Provenance took us behind the scenes of the lives of some of the manuscripts in the collection; where had they come from? How had they got to Cambridge?
From Constantinople to Heidelberg; follow the journey of Anthologia Palatina.
Many of the Greek manuscripts in libraries like Cambridge and Heidelberg are more than the texts they contain. They bear witness to centuries of conflict, crisis and change and embody those stories.
The Palatine Anthology (Anthologia Palatina) is the most famous Greek manuscript now held in the University Library in Heidelberg. The journeys it took in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries connect it to many of the turbulent events of the period.
From parchment to ultrasonic welders: what do our conservators use? Find out what it takes to be a conservator and the tools you'll need to rescue ancient manuscripts - some may be more surprising than others!
Cambridge's first printer (and record debtor?)
First record, in the Grace Book covering 1520/1, of the University's loan to Johannes bibliopola (John the bookseller) and the 1971 cheque in repayment.
First record, in the Grace Book covering 1520/1, of the University's loan to Johannes bibliopola (John the bookseller) and the 1971 cheque in repayment.
Five hundred years ago, John Siberch, the son of a German wool merchant, borrowed £20 from Cambridge University and set up the first printing press in the city.
He stayed in Cambridge only a short while before returning to Germany and dying, as far as records suggest, without ever repaying his debt.
Adjusting for a compound interest rate of 5% over the intervening five centuries, the debt would today stand in the hundreds of billion - fortunately for any descendants, the original sum was repaid and interest waived by the University in 1971
Curator of the Library's Historical Printing Room Colin Clarkson with some of the University Library's Siberch material. Image by Blazej Mikula.
Curator of the Library's Historical Printing Room Colin Clarkson with some of the University Library's Siberch material. Image by Blazej Mikula.
Newton rediscovered
The rediscovered notebook. © Bonhams
The rediscovered notebook. © Bonhams
A manuscript notebook which illuminated Isaac Newton’s complex and unorthodox relationship with Christianity – thought lost for almost 450 years – has been added to the world’s largest and most important archive of Newton material right here at the UL!
The notebook, originally thought lost, belonged to Newton’s long-time friend and collaborator, John Wickins, includes three transcribed letters from Newton. The originals had been lost by 1728, making these transcriptions the only surviving record of this correspondence.
The notebook also records a University ‘disputation’ in which Newton was required to discuss in public two theological topics.
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