'Places of inspiration and discovery'
Cambridge University Libraries Annual Review 2023-24
Foreword by
Dr Jessica Gardner
Through the power of libraries, the ideas and communities across Cambridge go on to change the world.
It may sound like a bold statement, but take a moment to reflect on the success (and challenges) we’ve encountered in the year captured in this Annual Report.
For example, we’ve seen our fledgling University Library Research Institute go from strength to strength; changing the way our libraries enable, interact with, and power research that is forever changing the way we understand the world around us.
Meanwhile, our Faculty and Departmental Libraries have recorded hundreds of thousands of visits, each one advancing the work of our students, researchers and academics who use our libraries as places of inspiration and discovery.
The University Library is one of the world’s great libraries and research collections. In the 12 months covered in this report alone we’ve celebrated making the archive of Professor Stephen Hawking available to researchers and historians, in news that reached right around the world.
We’ve also acquired the archive of the beloved Poems on the Underground project, which has brought happiness, and the beauty of poetry, to millions of people across the London Underground network for decades. We also celebrated two blockbuster exhibitions – Spitting Image: A Controversial History and Murder by the Book: a celebration of 20th century crime fiction.
Both of these wonderful and popular exhibitions were made possible by the collections we hold here at the University Library on behalf of the nation and the wider world. It is our pleasure and privilege to care for these world-class collections, and a responsibility that we never take for granted.
We have much to celebrate, but as always, there is still much to do. My job, and the work of our brilliant, dedicated staff across the entire libraries network at Cambridge, is to make sure our libraries continue to evolve, adapt and are fit-for-purpose in the 21st century.
To do so, we need to adjust and thrive to help the University deliver its mission in a fast-changing, uncertain and sometimes volatile landscape.
Each era faces its own challenges, but Cambridge's commitment to academic excellence is unchanging. This is the North Star for our libraries, and we rise to the challenge with a sense of hope and possibility.
Our staff, throughout Cambridge’s libraries, are some of the most expert and committed colleagues anyone could wish to work alongside. We care deeply about the communities of scholars, students and society at large that we serve.
Our commitment to you is that we’ll remain a University Libraries service that continues to cherish the life-changing in-person experience of Cambridge while being ambitious for our role as a national and global collection that seeks to integrate the best use of technology, AI, and the digital realm in supporting the university’s world-changing work.
As always, happy reading and thank you for all your support and care for what we do!
Dr Jessica Gardner
Cambridge University Librarian
Making the news
Murder by the Book proves a killer exhibition
Agatha Christie’s typewriter, Dictaphone and the typescript of her final Poirot novel went on display at Cambridge University Library in 2024, as part of a major free exhibition unravelling the history and enduring popularity of crime fiction.
Murder by the Book: a celebration of 20thcentury British crime fiction put on display nearly 100 of the most famous, influential and best-selling crime novels in UK history, as well as other consequential works that are now long out of print.
The vast majority of novels on display were drawn from the Library’s unique, world-class Tower collection of first editions in their original dust jackets.
The exhibition, which was featured in hundreds of news articles in the UK and across the world, was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Local crime writer and exhibition curator Nicola Upson talks about some of the famous works on display during Murder by the Book at the UL.
Curated by award-winning crime author Nicola Upson, Murder by the Book highlighted some of the most famous and formative works in the canon, with Upson interrogating why crime remains by far the UK’s most read, bought and borrowed genre of fiction.
Some of the titles on display during the exhibition.
Some of the titles on display during the exhibition.
A selection of the books on display during the Murder by the Book crime fiction exhibition.
A selection of the books on display during the Murder by the Book crime fiction exhibition.
One of the posters advertising the exhibition.
One of the posters advertising the exhibition.
Hawking Archive now available to the world's historians and researchers
After being transferred to Cambridge by the Hawking Family in 2021, the scientific and personal archive of Professor Stephen Hawking has been fully catalogued and is now available to all who might benefit from access to it at Cambridge University Library.
The Hawking Archive contains not only his scientific papers but personal correspondence and mementoes which brings into focus an incredible life and career as one of the most famous scientists (and personalities) of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Across 113 boxes of archive material is a treasure trove of tens of thousands of pages of papers relating to his work on theoretical physics, early drafts of his bestselling A Brief History of Time, as well as photographs of popes and presidents and scripts from films and TV series like The Simpsons, The X Files and Futurama.
There are also touching personal letters to and from his parents and wider family, including one of the first dictated using his now famous communication system, acquired after his tracheostomy in 1986.
"I’m writing this letter on my new computer which also speaks but a bit like a Dalek with an American accent."
"It is very useful for communicating but it is too big to carry around. However I have another one which I may be able to get fixed to my chair."
Archive letter from Stephen Hawking to his mother and father, January 1986
A selection of photos and letters from the Hawking Archive.
A selection of photos and letters from the Hawking Archive.
An X-Files script signed by creator Chris Carter and presented to Stephen Hawking.
An X-Files script signed by creator Chris Carter and presented to Stephen Hawking.
Poems on the Underground archive arrives at Cambridge
The archive of this beloved literary project has been donated to Cambridge University Library, home to the archives of Siegfried Sassoon, Anne Stevenson and other renowned poets.
Among the letters to organisers of the Poems on the Underground project are missives from Nobel Prize winners Seamus Heaney and Louise Glück, former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and Philip Larkin, among many other famous names from the world of poetry.
John Wells, Senior Archivist at Cambridge University Library, said: "This wonderful archive highlights the whole range of activities sponsored by Poems on the Underground – not just the well-known poetry posters in Tube carriages, but also readings, concerts and book publications."
Spitting Image exhibition examines its colourful, controversial history
A grand and grotesque selection of puppets, sketches, letters of complaint and even Margaret Thatcher's handbag went on display at Cambridge University Library - home to the Spitting Image archive - in a full retrospective exhibition of the TV phenomenon.
Spitting Image: A Controversial History unravelled the history and legacy of the satirical puppet show and the impact it had on British politics, culture and celebrity, for good and ill.
Exhibition curator Dr Chris Burgess said: "Spitting Image revolutionised how royalty, politicians and celebrities were depicted...and held to account.
"At its peak, 15 million people sat down at 10pm on a Sunday night to watch a show that became an icon of late 20th century television.
"No other post-watershed show could dream of such a viewership, let alone match it. This was a genuine phenomenon."
Oppenheimer and the poisoned apple: blockbuster archives
The huge blockbuster Oppenheimer begins by recounting the physicist’s time in Cambridge. The University Library archives hold the details of his time here.
Increasingly frustrated at his lack of progress in the lab, Cillian Murphy's Oppenheimer is shown injecting poison into an apple left for consumption by an exacting professor, only to have it picked up and then plucked from the hand of visiting Danish genius, Niels Bohr.
A cinematic twist, but did it, and the subsequent disciplinary intervention of the University authorities threatening expulsion, actually happen? Is there any evidence? Even the date – was it Michaelmas 1925 or Lent Term 1926 – is contested.
J. Robert Oppenheimer’s graduate student file is part of an extensive series in the archives of the Board of Research (later Graduate) Studies in the University Archives.
Upstairs in a wing of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1930s (classmark: Add.7653 PA336)
Upstairs in a wing of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1930s (classmark: Add.7653 PA336)
The file includes application letters for admission as a research student under the supervision of Professor J.J. Thomson (1856-1940). Oppenheimer writes that Thomson insisted on practical lab work, 16 September 1925 (classmark: UA BOGS 1 1920-37/1281)
The file includes application letters for admission as a research student under the supervision of Professor J.J. Thomson (1856-1940). Oppenheimer writes that Thomson insisted on practical lab work, 16 September 1925 (classmark: UA BOGS 1 1920-37/1281)
Taking a lead in research
Research Institute goes from strength to strength
By Eleanor Parmenter and Amelie Roper
The University Library Research Institute (ULRI) was established in May 2023 to enable collaborations between individuals and institutions locally, nationally and internationally that set the agenda for collections-led research.
Research libraries across the UK are involved in research projects in various capacities, with library practitioners increasingly recognised as expert contributors in the research ecosystem.
While a number of other library and archive-related research centres exist, the ULRI is unique in the UK academic library sector in having a dedicated, in-house Research Development Team, providing cradle-to-grave support for the University Library’s research activities.
The Research Institute has a portfolio of 35 research projects all focused on their strategic priority of discovery: generating new knowledge about our collections, exploring their diversity, and making it easier for people to find and use our holdings.
Library staff are involved in a variety of roles, including Project Lead, Project Co-Lead, Research Assistant, Curatorial Expert, Heritage Photographer, Conservator and Project Cataloguer.
Among the current live research endeavours are the Baskerville typeface and Hidden in Plain Sight projects explored below.
ULRI has also facilitated a New Visiting Fellow and Scholar Programmes (TCD Fellow and Liberation Collection Visiting Scholar Programme) and in June 2023, launched our first Visiting Fellow Programme which saw Dr Christina Morin (Trinity College Dublin) join us to research her project 'Irish Gothic in the Global Nineteenth Century'.
In June and July 2024, Liberation Collection Visiting Scholar Dr Marie Puren (EPITA Research Laboratory) undertook a project on The New Editorial and Literary Landscape in Post-War France (1944-1946).
Major investment in heritage science research
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awarded the University Library two large grants for heritage science research.
The two projects, 'Small Performances' and 'Hidden in Plain Sight', allow us to step back in time to look at the creation of one of the world’s most popular and enduring typefaces (the Baskerville font) and the secrets contained within sacred texts of some of the world’s major religions.
The Baskerville typeface is familiar to billions of readers and users of standard computer software across the world. However, the story behind its creation by John Baskerville (1707-75) is much less widely known.
This is in spite of the fact that printing is recognised as the invention of the millennium and he was England's foremost printer.
The launch event and introduction to the Small Performances project.
At the heart of the research project is the exceptional collection of typographic punches designed, cut, and used at Baskerville's workshop in Birmingham, and now housed at the Historical Printing Room in Cambridge University Library. The research project is co-led by Birmingham City University and the University of Cambridge.
Complex technical imaging, 3D microscopy, Micro-CT scanning, DNA analysis and a range of spectroscopic methods will be used in the historical and scientific analysis of scared books as part of the Hidden in Plain Sight project.
University Librarian Dr Jessica Gardner said: “These two projects perfectly encapsulate the research-active environment our 21st century University Library embraces and encourages, using state-of-the-art equipment and involving technicians, experts and researchers from not only the UL, but across the University and the wider UK – all building on investment from the AHRC’s previous Capability for Collections funding."
Baskerville's punches in their current housing
Baskerville's punches in their current housing
Reflection Transformation Imaging (RTI) walk-through
Reflection Transformation Imaging (RTI) walk-through
"g" punch - micro RTI visualisation
"g" punch - micro RTI visualisation
The Baskerville Bible, printed in 1763, Cambridge, England.
The Baskerville Bible, printed in 1763, Cambridge, England.
Community Participation
Connecting new and diverse communities with our
collections and services
By Hannah Haines
Generous support from HEIF (Higher Education Innovation Funding) has enabled significant new ventures towards the University’s commitment to knowledge exchange for social and cultural impact.
In November 2023, the Participation Team in the UL’s Engagement and Services Directorate began building a participation model to create beneficial routes for people from the local community and beyond to access the unique collections and spaces, service and expertise here.
The work is harnessing CUL’s expertise in facilitating learning and research to enable all library members to access induction and information literacy support that meet their needs.
Our pilot scheme to support students from Hills Road Sixth Form College to access the UL and the Charles Darwin Archive allowed more than 100 16-18 year olds to experience using a research library for their Extended Project Qualification (EPQ).
Photo by Fernando Venzano on Unsplash
Photo by Fernando Venzano on Unsplash
This offer supports the University to enable the widest possible student access to the University, and meets an identified need to engage the KS5 age group with information literacy within the University’s cultural offer. The second year of the pilot will see an extended programme of information literacy support, and will include two more local Sixth Forms.
Together with the University’s network of museums, public engagement and civic engagement teams, we are providing strong support to address the place of the University within the broader academic and local community. We are working to connect with groups in the city that are hard to reach due to economic deprivation, social isolation, poor health or disability.
Between November 2023-July 2024, the Participation team delivered participatory workshops and library tours to new and diverse audiences, driving deeper engagement with our collections and signposting people to explore UL membership:
- We welcomed students and staff from Cambridge charity Rowan Arts to explore life writing and portraiture created by adults with learning disabilities. Participants engaged in writing their own histories, which were exhibited at West Hub as part of the Cambridge Festival in March 2024.
A student at the Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
A student at the Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
- In collaboration with the Museums of Zoology and Anthropology and Archaeology, we hosted Y13 students on the Future Museum Voices Project to discover the UL and the Darwin archive in April 2024.
- We partnered with UCM and a dance practitioner on a pilot initiative in June 2024, ‘Encounters: Dance for Parkinson’s’. Participants were guided to creatively respond to items from the Darwin Archive in a session designed to improve the wellbeing of those affected by Parkinson’s through stimulating embodied engagement.
- We formed a strong working relationship with the Library Development Team at Cambridgeshire Libraries, building on an initial collaboration on the Murder by the Book public programme. This included a pop-up exhibition in Cambridgeshire Libraries seen by over 60,000 people, an author event at Milton Road Library, and invitations to local library Book Clubs to join our Really Popular Book Club (we offered the purchase of books to break down barriers to entry).
One million and counting. Cambridge Digital Library hits milestone image number
Cambridge Digital Library passed the one million images milestone and added seven new collections between August 2023-July 2024.
Cambridge Digital Library is freely available to everyone everywhere.
The new collections bring the total to 91 collections, with a total of 1,011,149 images of 49,363 items on the Digital Library (and counting) .
The seven new collections include two additional College collections, Corpus Christi College and Magdalene College, as well as new collections from the Faculty of Classics that features archive material from the archaeologist Alan J. B. Wace.
Thanks to new multispectral imaging facilities in the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab (CHIL) a new collection, called Paper Stocks, explores evidence of paper manufacture.
Another new project, orchestrated by the David Jones Research Centre, centres around the artist and poet David Jones. The collection features artworks, correspondence, speeches and inscriptions from the collections of Kettle's Yard and the National Library of Wales.
Lourdes, 1928. David Jones. © The Estate of David Jones / Bridgeman Images. Photo: Kettle's Yard
Lourdes, 1928. David Jones. © The Estate of David Jones / Bridgeman Images. Photo: Kettle's Yard
New content has also been added to major ongoing projects, including the Genizah Research Unit and Curious Cures.
The Cambridge Digital Library team took a lead role in research projects across the University, collaborating with Cambridge Digital Humanities and the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Walking with Constable project blended walking with augmented reality and incorporated digital collections from the Fitzwilliam Museum and Cambridge Digital Library, featuring as part of the Cambridge Festival.
It was a new approach to public dialogue and community-led research, increasing participation in research for underrepresented groups.
Support across Cambridge University Libraries
Teaching information and research skills at Cambridge University Libraries
By Helen Murphy (with contributions from Lynne Meehan, Laura Moss and Emma Etteridge)
Students and researchers in Cambridge have access to a wide range of opportunities to develop the information and research skills they need for study and research.
Library staff across our libraries deliver a range of teaching sessions and workshops throughout the year, some online and some in the classroom, live and asynchronous, standalone and embedded in the curriculum, from introductory to advanced academic practices.
Here, we highlight three diverse examples from 2023-24, showcasing the range of support available, and underlining what they have in common: a desire to understand and meet the student or researcher where they are, and to work in partnership with our academic colleagues.
Foundation Year students take a highly multidisciplinary course, spanning Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Our approach to skills teaching in 2023-24, developed in conjunction with the course convenors, reflected this multidisciplinarity: the programme was created and delivered by library staff used to supporting students in a variety of disciplines, including English, Law, Philosophy, History, Music, as well as colleagues from the University Library, West Hub and Wolfson College.
The training programme balanced introductory knowledge about libraries – Cambridge is quite complicated, especially for those new to higher education! – with essential skills, and the focus throughout was developing student confidence in navigating diverse, multi- and interdisciplinary collections.
In Technology, library teaching for undergraduate students is highly tailored. The starting point for planning is the course outline, and library staff work with academic colleagues to identify key points of intervention, such as a Time Management and Learning Techniques workshop to support revision for Chemical Engineering students.
Often teaching is aligned to and organised around a specific assessment, such as the research project that fourth year Engineers complete. The library team draw clear connections between the workshop they offer and this research project, and they consistently adapt and improve their teaching, taking close account of student and academic feedback, continuing the close tailoring of their teaching to student need.
A core feature of the Research Skills programme is to bring together researchers from across disciplines, fostering connections between them. Offered to all Cambridge researchers, from postgraduate students to postdoctoral researchers and Principal Investigators of research projects, their workshops in 2023-24 covered all stages of the research process: finding information, managing data, understanding copyright and publishing and sharing research.
During the workshops, library staff provide key information on these areas, in online and face-to-face workshops, and they use their disciplinary expertise to support researchers in applying this key information to their own disciplinary context.
West Hub Library powering research community collaboration
By Sarah Crudge with contributions from Daniele Campello
Over the past year, the STEMM library teams have been helping researchers across our community come together in an informal setting to exchange ideas around themes such as climate change, pandemic preparedness and data intensive science.
The Research Cafes offer researchers the opportunity to showcase their research through lightning talks and posters, and to connect with related research from other disciplines.
The Research Cafes receive funding from the West Hub Community Events Programme, and the organising library team have attracted sponsorship and support from across the Cambridge community and beyond, working with the Postdocs of Cambridge Society, Cambridge Philosophical Society, and G-Research to name but a few.
Since the first event in January 2024, more than 50 lightning talks and posters have been shared, and over 200 attendees welcomed from within our community, other universities and the private sector.
The key strength of the event is the networking opportunities that are facilitated during the refreshments and lunch. We have seen researchers from our community securing grants from on-site sponsors and engaging with start-ups to discuss opportunities to develop their research.
The West Hub Library is located at the heart of Cambridge West, and is open to members of the public, in addition to supporting the academic community.
The flexible spaces offered by the Hub enable our communities to come together to learn, collaborate and socialise.
Thank you
Supporters of Cambridge University Libraries become a part of our history, helping to preserve and enhance our collections for future generations.
Every donation counts and we are so grateful for the incredible network of individuals, trusts, and foundations who share our commitment to education, learning and research of the highest quality.
We are grateful to all our supporters, including: Arts Council England, Avery-Tsui Foundation, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, Ann D Foundation, Dr Chris Dobson, Evolution Education Trust, Nigel Grimshaw, Korea Foundation, Sybil Kretzmer, The Second Joseph Aaron Littman Foundation, The John R Murray Charitable Trust, National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, The Penchant Foundation, and other generous donors who wish to remain anonymous and those who have pledged a legacy.
We also want to thank Cambridge University Library's Patrons, whose contributions enable the Libraries to grow, share, and care for our collections. We extend our sincere thanks to Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey, Nigel Grimshaw, Chris Jones, Gurnee Hart, Rabbi Aubrey Hersh, Dr Martin Heyworth, Stephen Irish, Professor Jean-Michel Massing and Ann Massing, Professor Eric Nye and Professor Carol D. Frost, Cliff Webb, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
We are thankful for the ongoing generosity of the Friends of Cambridge University Library, which provides vital support towards securing new acquisitions, conserving and digitising our collections, and supporting our public programmes.
Donations to Cambridge University Libraries
Special Collections: Selected Major Acquisitions
Manuscripts and corrected proofs from the collection of Alexander Pollock Watt and his son Alexander Strahan Watt (MSS Add. 10219–10233)
Autograph manuscripts and annotated proofs of 15 literary works by various authors represented by the literary agents A. P. Watt and Son, some accompanied by items of correspondence. As well as multiple volumes of Rudyard Kipling proofs, including The Jungle Book, Rewards and Fairies and Puck of Pook’s Hill, the collection also includes an array of manuscripts by writers from the 1870s to the 1920s. Accepted in lieu of Inheritance tax by HM Government in 2024 and allocated to Cambridge University Library.
Japanese woodblock-printed books from the collection of Eugène Gillet (1859–1938)
With the generous support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, the University Library acquired six remarkable woodblock-printed books produced in Japan across the 18th and 19th centuries. Each volume is beautifully illustrated and features dazzling supplementary covers lined with richly patterned East-Asian textiles. These books once belonged to Eugène Gillet (1859–1938), a French artist, collector, and bibliophile active in Paris from the 1890s into the 1930s. A folder of unstudied archival documents and ephemera was acquired along with the books, comprising sales catalogues documenting the auctions of Gillet’s books and artworks, a notebook with a detailed inventory of his Japanese book collection, and various handwritten notes reflecting Gillet’s meticulous research.
‘The world turned upside down’
La folie des hommes, ou le monde a rebours is a unique large format printed broadside measuring nearly 1.5m long, printed in Orleans in 1783 in four colours and depicting a gently satirical image of the ‘World turned upside down’. Purchased with the generous support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, this is an excellent complement to the University Library’s exceptional holdings of colour printing in the Waddleton collection, and the similar format Spanish ‘Aleluyas’.
Poems on the Underground Archive (MS Add. 10463)
Documents relating to 'Poems on the Underground' and related publications and activities, collected and donated to the University Library by Judith Chernaik, a co-founder of the programme. The papers include correspondence, project files, subject files, and printed items, including copies of a selection of posters.
The 30th anniversary of Poems on the Underground saw Heaney's The Railway Children posted on the Tube once more. Credit: Poems on the Underground/TFL.
The 30th anniversary of Poems on the Underground saw Heaney's The Railway Children posted on the Tube once more. Credit: Poems on the Underground/TFL.
Papers of Tom Stacey
Papers of Tom Stacey, foreign correspondent, novelist, publisher and campaigner for penal reform in Uganda. Donated by the family to the Centre of African Studies Library.
Personal papers of Dr Susan Hall
Includes handwritten field notes and cards (within approximately 25 folders) covering research in Central Uganda in missionary and colonial archives on the Kingdom of Bunyoro. The collection also includes two dissertations and a small number of educational publications. Donated by Dr Hall’s husband, Sam Bryan, to the Centre of African Studies Library.
Mahogany: Africa’s Magazine for the Progressive Woman
Nine bound volumes of the monthly periodical Mahogany: Africa’s Magazine for the Progressive Woman (1984–1994), a ground-breaking African magazine aimed specifically at women. Donated by Jennifer Woodruff to the Centre of African Studies Library, who received them on the death of her godmother Gill Beach, creator and editor of Mahogany. The periodical is otherwise only available in the National Library of South Africa.
Scrapbook of George Turnour Horton Atchison (MS Add. 10497)
An album of sketches made by Atchison as an army officer between 1851 and his death in 1861 during the Second China War, together with photographs by Felice Beato and other manuscript and printed material. The album serves both as a valuable visual record of mid-nineteenth-century China seen through European eyes, and as a record of a military conflict which defined China's relationship with the West.
Papers of John Schroder relating to Christopher Hassall, Joan Hassall and others (MS Add. 10484)
The papers consist principally of letters from the writer and librettist Christopher Hassall and his sister the artist and wood-engraver Joan Hassall to John Schroder, and letters from Christopher Hassall to Joan Hassall. There are also letters from Christopher Hassall to other correspondents, and from correspondents other than the Hassalls, including Frances Cornford. The papers give insight into the projects of two creative siblings, and the middle decades of the twentieth century.
Notebooks by a Cottenham Schoolgirl
These notebooks by Elizabeth Bicheno provide an excellent self-contained example of the types of subjects studied by young girls in nineteenth-century England. The University Library already holds a considerable quantity of archival material relating to Elizabeth’s family, local farmers, and these are an excellent and highly ephemeral source for Cambridgeshire life of the period.
Ian Mackenzie archive (MS Add. 10498)
Archive of the poet and soldier Ian Mackenzie, who died of pneumonia on Armistice Day 1918, aged 20. Ill health had meant he never saw active service. The archive includes letters to Mackenzie from Robert Graves, Charles Scott Moncrieff, Osbert Sitwell and J. C. Squire, and post-WWI correspondence from Arthur Waugh to Mackenzie's sister Eileen mentioning his novelist sons Alec and Evelyn.
Siegfried Sassoon papers from the collection of Roger Tolman (MS Add. 10466)
A miscellaneous group of papers, with highlights including the photograph (below) of Sassoon and three other officers of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (Second Battalion), each officer and his fate identified and the picture dated in Sassoon’s hand “Amiens” March 31 1917; and The Best of Both Worlds: Poems of Spirit and Sense by Henry Vaughan & Andrew Marvell.
Books from the library of Siegfried Sassoon (CCC.39.115–122)
Eight volumes of poetry, five by Coleridge, from the personal collection of Siegfried Sassoon. Two of the volumes include significant annotations by the poet. Donated to the University Library by Danielle, Lindsay, and Jordan Kijewski in memory of their father Joseph.
Bernard de Girard Du Haillan, Receuil d’advis et conseils sur les affaires d’estat (Paris: L’Huillier, 1578)
A book of instructive essays based on Plutarch’s Lives by Bernard du Haillan, a friend of Michel de Montaigne. This annotated copy belonged to Luc de Valimbert, municipal treasurer at Besançon in the 1570s and 1580s.
‘Carte de visite’ photograph of one of the first women readers at Cambridge University Library
Carte de visite of Constantia Ellicott, photographed by Mayland, Market St, Cambridge. Ellicott was one of three women granted a reader’s ticket for the University Library on 22 January 1855, under new rules that permitted non-members of the University to apply for tickets in their own right. Ellicott was an accomplished amateur singer, wife of Charles John Ellicott (Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1860 and later Bishop of Gloucester) and mother of the composer Rosalind Ellicott.
Monte San Martino Trust Archive (MS Add. 10473)
This deposited archive consists of unpublished personal accounts of prisoners of war held in Italy at the time of the Italian Armistice in 1943. The accounts variously detail the individuals' war service, capture and captivity, escape from captivity, and attempts to evade recapture with the assistance of members of the Italian civilian population.
Public Engagement Events Calendar
Public Engagement Events
3,270 people attended 63 public events between August 2023 and July 2024. See the highlights below:
FAMILY EVENTS
During August 2023 we hosted four sold out family-friendly events including three relating to the Raymond Briggs exhibition that was on display at the time, and one on Charles Darwin.
SPITTING IMAGE EVENTS
Our Spitting Image events programme encouraged conversation about modern politics and satire, and included two book clubs, an introductory lecture from the curator Dr Chris Burgess, and a talk from broadcaster Nels Abbey on his new book, Think Like a White Man – Black Satire in the 21st Century (September 2023 to February 2024).
MURDER BY THE BOOK EVENTS
With funding from the Arts Council and partnerships with the Crime Writers Association and the Black Writers Guild, we built a programme that explored the breadth of the crime fiction genre. This included:
‘Crime doesn’t have to be second class literature’: An evening with Nicola Upson (March 2024, hosted during the Cambridge Festival).
Crime Writers on Crime Writing, with Nicola Upson, Elly Griffiths and Andrew Taylor (April 2024, hosted as part of the Cambridge Literary Festival).
World Book Night: Crime and Cocktails in the Library (April 2024, pictured above).
Murderous Inspirations: Crime Novels that Inspire Crime Writers, with Fiona Veitch Smith, Abir Mukherjee, Nadine Matheson and Barry Forshaw (June 2024, hosted as part of the CWA’s Crime Reading Month).
Crime Time with Nicola Upson (June 2024, hosted at the Milton Library).
A Mind to Murder: Celebrating P.D. James (August 2024, hosted in partnership with Faber).
THE REALLY POPULAR BOOK CLUB
Our monthly, online book club continued. Sessions included Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with Sarah Houghton-Walker, The Sellout by Paul Beatty with Darold Cuba, Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier with Lizzie Marx, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn with Sam Blake.
SANDARS LECTURES
Dr David Pearson was the Sandars Reader for 2023, providing three lectures on the subject of ‘Cambridge Bookbinding, 1450-1770’. They were delivered in November 2023 to an in-person audience at Robinson College and live-streamed around the world.
FRIENDS EVENTS
The following events were hosted by and for the Friends of Cambridge University Library:
Spitting Image: Conservation Tour and Coffee Morning (October 2023).
What to Look for in Winter: Children’s Books in the UL’s Tower Collection, with Dr Sarah Pyke, Munby Fellow 2023-24 (December 2023).
From Shelf to Screen: Digitisation Tour and Coffee Morning (February 2024).
Cambridge University Libraries
A network that includes Cambridge University Library on West Road and 34 Faculty and Departmental libraries across Cambridge.
The African Studies Library
The Architecture and History of Art Library
The Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Library
The Balfour and Newton Libraries (Zoology)
The Betty and Gordon Moore Library for Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Technology
The Chemistry Library
The Casimir Lewy Library (Philosophy)
The Classics Library
The Cory and Herbarium Libraries
The Divinity Library
The Engineering Library
The English Library
The Everton Library (Education)
The Haddon Library (Archaeology and Anthropology)
The Genetics Library
The Geography Library
The Marshall Library (Economics)
The Material Science & Metallurgy Library
The Medical Library
The Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Library
The MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Library
The Pendlebury Library (Music)
The Plant Sciences Library
The Psychology Library
The Physiology, Development and Neuroscience Library
The Scott Polar Research Institute Library
The Seeley Library (History, Land Economy, Latin-American Studies, Policy and International Studies, Sociology)
The South Asian Studies Library
The Squire Law Library
The Radzinowicz Library (Criminology)
The Rayleigh Library (Physics)
The Veterinary Medicine Library
The West Hub Library
The Whipple Library (History and Philosophy of Science)
Built with Shorthand