Poetry, Art and the Fight for Clean Rivers: the year ahead at Cambridge University Library

2026 promises to be another thrilling year of exhibitions, events and research projects at Cambridge University Library - one of the world's great libraries and research collections.

Our exhibitions are free and open to all.

Visiting an exhibition at the library allows you to explore our exhibition centre, the gallery corridors in our iconic 1934 Giles Gilbert Scott building, and stop for some refreshments in our tea room.

The University Library Research Institute (ULRI) will continue to support ground-breaking, collections-led research in 2026, including the completion and legacy of the ArCH project, and several new initiatives.

The AI for Cultural Heritage Hub (ArCH) project will finish in March 2026. Launched in February 2025, ArCH is a pilot project to help Cambridge’s GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) to analyse cultural heritage data with AI tools.

In the final three months of the project, research will continue and events will showcase findings. This will include public outreach at the Scott Polar Research Institute in February and a drop-in session at Cambridge University Library in March for heritage practitioners and academics.

A hybrid conference in March will celebrate the project's finding with presentations, posters, and networking opportunities. To keep up-to-date with these events, including when bookings are live, join the ArCH mailing list.

Papyri and Manuscripts: Exploring Layers of Ages (PAMELA) is a three-year initiative launching in January 2026. This pioneering project will transform the study of Greek papyri and medieval manuscripts. Run by a consortium of 12 partners, it will integrate traditionally separate disciplines including papyrology, manuscript studies, conservation science, AI-driven palaeographic analysis, and material sciences.

Over the next three years, Cambridge University Library will host summer hackathons and provide nine staff members or PhD students with the opportunity to visit another institution in the consortium for one month to research papyri.

In 2026, the ULRI will help to establish a ground breaking Conservation and Collections Care Research Network.

Led by Dr Ayesha Fuentes (Conservation Research Associate, Cambridge University Library), this 18-month project will cultivate a research network of conservators and collections-care staff across the University of Cambridge Museums, Cambridge University Library and Cambridge Colleges’ Conservation Consortium. It aims to expand and advance conservators’ capacities as researchers through training, workshops and knowledge exchange.

You can keep up-to-date with ULRI research news, opportunities and events by signing up to their mailing list.

In 2026, Cambridge University Library’s Participation Team will continue to expand its role as an active and responsive civic partner, supporting the University’s commitment to working more closely with local communities and addressing shared needs through meaningful collaboration.  

We are excited to be partnering with local sixth-form colleges to support their students' introduction to independent research and the development of study skills, both required for the Extended Project Qualification. Following strongly supportive external evaluation we are exploring ways to embed future support for a growing sixth-form audience.  

Work with Cambridgeshire Libraries continues to bring new voices into contact with the University Library’s collections. This spring, the partnership will deliver a series of poetry workshops in public libraries across Cambridge, inspired by the Living Water exhibition and designed to spark creativity through shared exploration of river health. 

The popular programme of Taster Tours invites people in the City and beyond to discover the University Library, and encourages them to find their own place here. We continue to develop our civic membership pilot, creating targeted pathways for people in local organisations and charities to access new research.    

We’re continuing to support learners at every stage of their intellectual journey. Collaborations with Cambridge Older People’s Enterprise will bring stimulating, Darwin-inspired, telephone-based discussions to participants in the Talking Together programme, while the long-running Exploring Evolution initiative will continue to support trainee teachers nationwide. 

One of the most significant projects on the horizon is Black British Voices: Black British Collections, a major community-led initiative supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. A dedicated community panel will explore representations of Black British history within the Library’s collections and shape the 2027 exhibition and public programme—marking a landmark step toward community-driven research and interpretation of one of the world’s great cultural collections. 

The 2025/26 Sandars Readership will be undertaken by Professor Marina Rustow, who will deliver the Sandars Lecture Series in late 2026.   

Marina Rustow is a social historian of the medieval Middle East who works with sources from the Cairo Genizah, a cache of roughly 400,000 folio pages and fragments preserved in an Egyptian synagogue.   

She received a B.A. (1990) from Yale University and two Master’s degrees (1998), an MPhil (1999), and a PhD (2004) from Columbia University. She taught at Emory University (2003–2010) and Johns Hopkins University (2010–2015) before joining the faculty of Princeton University, where she is currently a Professor in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and History and Director of the Princeton Geniza Lab. 

Marina Rustow’s publications include Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (2008) and The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue (2020). 

More details on the Sandars events programme will be confirmed (and updated here) in 2026.