The end of each year brings a moment to pause: to celebrate what has been achieved, and to look ahead with hope and purpose. This year’s Annual Review once again illuminates the remarkable breadth of work undertaken by our wonderful colleagues across our Libraries and Archives network, and at the University Library.

As you’ll read, the University’s most-read story of the year involved the rediscovery of a 13th-century manuscript fragment, hidden in plain sight at the University Library, which reveals tales of Merlin and King Arthur.

Finds like these remind us that libraries have always evolved alongside the great shifts in how information is created and transmitted. Whether pressed into clay, written on parchment, printed on paper, or stored in digital form, the knowledge we steward continues to reveal its secrets, to inspire new discovery, and answer new questions.

Across more than thirty Faculty and Departmental Libraries, our spaces and servers now hold vast and growing digital landscapes alongside cherished print collections. Yet throughout these transformations, the core purpose of libraries endures; we connect people to ideas, and ideas to one another. Libraries are catalysts for learning and research and collaboration; they remain cherished spaces and essential services at the heart of a life-changing Cambridge education and world-changing scholarship.

Because libraries are, above all, about people, our services must evolve as the needs of our communities evolve. The ways we configure spaces, collect materials, support skills, and deliver access must continue to enhance inclusivity and accessibility and adapt to technological change and the shifting patterns of student and research life.

As Cambridge changes, so too must its library estate. Early plans which look at reshaping our beloved Giles Gilbert Scott building reflect this; a commitment to honouring its legacy (and original purpose) while preparing it for the 21st century and beyond.

The next five years offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape how we deliver our mission across Libraries and Archives. We need to provide a resilient and blended digital and physical service that places users at its centre.

This includes strengthening our services across sites, supporting interdisciplinarity as well as subject needs, developing our estate and digital strategy, and ensuring that every member of our community can rely on high-quality collections, skills support, digital services, and welcoming spaces.

As part of this commitment, we have renewed our commitment to modern academic collections, and expanded electronic and data-rich resources while maintaining the strength of long-form print scholarship.

We have invested in digital preservation, now a core business, to safeguard Cambridge’s scholarly record for generations to come, and we will continue improving discovery, utilising AI tools, so our collections can be found and used with ease.

Through the University Library Research Institute, interdisciplinary teams apply advanced imaging, heritage science, and digital technologies to interpret our collections in new ways, from analysing the DNA of medieval parchment to revealing erased texts and creating 3D models of fragile artefacts.

Thanks to the skill, passion, and creativity of our staff, the most exciting times for our libraries still lie ahead of us.

Happy reading,

Dr Jessica Gardner 
Cambridge University Librarian 

The page proofs of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book – complete with the author’s handwritten poems – have been allocated to Cambridge University Library as part of HM Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

As well as multiple volumes of Kipling proofs, including Rewards and Fairies and Puck of Pook’s Hill, the collection of works from celebrated literary agent AP Watt also includes a remarkable array of manuscripts by once famed writers from the 1870s to the 1920s – the heyday of the popular English novel.

Labour Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: "The Jungle Book is a family classic that has spawned countless other works, including the famous Disney 1967 cartoon film and the 2016 film.

"Now that these proofs will be available at Cambridge University Library, I’m sure they will provide more than the bare necessities for academics, aspiring novelists and self-confessed book worms.

"Through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, Cambridge University Library will have the opportunity to showcase and contextualise these works so that members of the public can be educated, inspired and entertained by them for years to come.”

An exceptionally rare collection of manuscripts from Asia and North Africa, the majority of which were on show for the very first time, went on display at the University Library as part of its Endless Stories exhibition in 2024-25.

Through these works, the exhibition revealed how knowledge travelled thousands of miles, over hundreds of years, during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.

Chris Burgess, Head of Exhibitions and Public Programmes at Cambridge University Library, said: "Ancient manuscripts are time machines, they take us back to other worlds.

“The youngest object in Endless Stories was 400 years old, the oldest over 700. The age range was long, the locations varied, and the number of languages extraordinary."

May 2025 marked the second anniversary of launching the University Library Research Institute (ULRI), a centre for collections-led research.   

The vision for the Library's Research Institute is to enhance international scholarship by connecting people and collections. Its activities directly align with the University of Cambridge Libraries and Archives strategic goal to be world leading in research through collections. Key priorities have been showcasing research, developing offerings for early career researchers, and supporting an increasing number of library staff to undertake research. 

Since its launch in May 2023, the ULRI has submitted 64 research funding applications. Research themes have ranged from medieval medical recipes, to the use of AI to enable access to cultural heritage collections, and new approaches to long-form publishing.   

The Research Institute has a portfolio of over 25 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.   

Two projects that launched earlier this year are ‘Materialising Open Research Practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences’ (MORPHSS), and AI for Cultural Heritage (ArCH).

MORPHSS is a three-year project funded by the Research England Development (RED) Fund, the Wellcome Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

It aims to showcase what ‘openness’ could mean for humanities and social sciences research and how it can benefit its researchers and institutions. The team is led by Cambridge University Library with Co-Leads at Coventry University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Southampton. 

The project is being led by Dr Samuel Moore, a Scholarly Communication Specialist in the Open Research team. Dr Moore also published his first monograph in September 2025 entitled Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons. The book is a critical exploration of the movement for open access publishing and an argument for a new system of scholar-led open access

Meanwhile, ArCH is a 14-month project ending in March 2026, funded by ai@cam, that deploys the convening power of Cambridge’s distributed network of collections to create a secure workspace and Community of Practice to empower non-technical users (practitioners and academics) to analyse cultural heritage data securely with AI tools. 

Since the cross-disciplinary and cross-collections project started in February 2025, the project team have built the protype hub, run five workshops engaging with cultural heritage professionals and academics, and delivered 12 presentations on their findings. 

Advancing Knowledge Through Collections, Collaboration and Innovation

This year saw the University Library and its Research Institute build on its distinctive strengths in stewardship, research and digital innovation, delivering projects that brought new insights into global scholarship and broadened access to unique collections.

Revealing collections, past and present
Our collaborative research continued to illuminate materials long held in Cambridge's care. The Hidden in Plain Sight project is advancing understanding of the Great Bibles through new analysis (see more below), and fieldwork in Bhutan, is bringing advanced conservation techniques to support the country's cultural heritage.

The Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project reached an important milestone with the completion of a three-year programme to catalogue and digitise medieval medical manuscripts; more than 7,000 pages of recipes are now freely available on Cambridge Digital Library, opening new pathways for interdisciplinary exploration.

The Small Performances project achieved a significant step forward by digitising more than 200 punches and associated printed material. These will be published in the Cambridge Digital Library in 2026, with a newly developed Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) viewer allowing researchers to interrogate these artefacts in unprecedented detail.

Documenting the recent past
Library-led initiatives also captured the contemporary history of technological innovation.

The HEIF-funded Cambridge History of Innovation Project (CHIP) curates a public archive chronicling Cambridge’s role as a global centre of technological development from the 1960s to the present.

This year, eight new archives were acquired, representing pioneering organisations including ARM, Camdata, SwiftKey, Applied Research of Cambridge, Laser-Scan, Smallworld, and Astex Pharmaceuticals.

The project’s oral-history strand recorded interviews with 25 leading figures — including figures such as Sir David Klenerman, Sir Greg Winter, Sir Robin Saxby and David Cleevely CBE — preserving first-hand accounts of the Cambridge Phenomenon for future research.

Our work on digital heritage also captured the public's attention, with the Future Nostalgia project attracting international press coverage, through events such as the “Copy that Floppy Café.”

Outputs included interviews with retro-computing enthusiasts and a new best-practice resource for handling and preserving floppy disks, produced in partnership with the Digital Preservation Coalition.

Strengthening global and early-career networks

The first year of the WongAvery Visiting Scholar Exchange Programme with the UC San Diego Library enabled reciprocal research visits, deepening international collaboration and enriching the study of collections of Chinese material.

We also expanded our support for emerging scholars. This included welcoming two PhD students under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme, a Collaborative Doctoral Award on Spanish chapbooks, and a second Leverhulme Early Career Fellow to work on the Genizah collections. In addition, we announced the appointment of the 2025–27 Munby Fellow, Grace Exley, who will spend two years researching women's contributions to scientific print culture in nineteenth-century Britain.

Over the past year, the Participation Team has taken major strides to open our world-class collections to people who may never have imagined the University Library as a place for them.

Now in its second year, the team has expanded its role as a civic partner for Cambridge and the wider region, building strong relationships with community organisations, charities, and local education networks.  

Inspiring the next generation of researchers 

Our partnership with local sixth form colleges offering the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) has flourished, reaching almost 750 students this year. Working closely with teachers and education networks, the team helps young people develop essential information-literacy skills and introduces them to the possibilities of independent research within the Library’s collections. One EPQ participant encouraged others to ‘sign up, because there are some great materials that you can't get access to normally that are really helpful for research’. 

Beyond the EPQ partnership, and with colleagues across the Library, the team has supported over 200 A-level students through the Unlocking Libraries programme. We have contributed to University access and participation events, including welcoming around 600 prospective students and families on University Open Days.  

Civic engagement and lifelong learning 

We have delivered a rich programme of community-centred activities, ranging from targeted workshops to exhibition tours and creative collaborations. Many are codesigned with underrepresented groups, or focused on those who may otherwise face barriers to accessing cultural and academic resources.  

• Visitors from Cambridgeshire Libraries, including individuals seeking asylum, were welcomed for a special tour of the Endless Stories exhibition. Events connected to the Curious Cures collection were delivered in partnership with public libraries and even streamed nationally through the British Library’s Living Knowledge Network.  

• We facilitated visits for over 300 people from schools, local history societies and community groups to explore our exhibition, Curious Cures, in greater depth, and to learn more about using CUL’s collections.   

• Our new  Taster Tours, launched in January 2025, offer an open invitation to the local community to discover the University Library. Growing in popularity, the tours encouraged over 50 participants to consider joining the Library for the first time.   

• Creative partnerships have flourished; a notable collaboration with the Cambridge Timeline Choir led to musical interpretations of ‘curious cures’, with choir members emerging as enthusiastic new users of the Library. 

• Through involvement with the University’s Civic Operations Group, we are supporting the charity It Takes a City by improving access to current research that informs a new charter against homelessness in Cambridge. 

• Workshops celebrating world cultures, featuring Qur’anic manuscripts and Korean Bibles, have welcomed participants from Cambridgeshire and London.  

• Sessions inspired by the Darwin archive have supported lifelong learners across the county and provided training on teaching evolution to more than 100 trainee teachers nationally. 

This ambitious and inclusive programme is generously supported by Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF), which helps the University of Cambridge enhance knowledge exchange for social and cultural impact. Together, these initiatives are helping to ensure that Cambridge University Library serves not only as a repository of knowledge, but as a vibrant, welcoming space for communities near and far. 

For the University Library's Department of World Collections, 2025 was a landmark year, one in which our heritage collections moved to the centre of national and international attention.

In January 2025, the Japanese and Korean Section, under the leadership of its head Jiyeon Wood, embarked on an unexpected cultural-heritage initiative that resonated far beyond our walls.

What began as careful curatorial work quickly grew into a series of cultural and outreach activities, demonstrating the extraordinary relevance of the Library’s Korean collections today and uniting researchers, global media, and local communities.

Ms Wood made a remarkable rediscovery in our archives: a rare handwritten letter in Korean, dated 1884. This document, written by Kim Ok‑kyun (1851-1894), a prominent political figure in the late Chosŏn dynasty, was addressed to the British diplomat Sir Harry Smith Parkes. The letter gives new insight into a 19^th-century failed coup and shows how domestic and international forces collided in shaping Korea’s modern history. 

The document made waves in South Korea. In June, an exclusive article (English version) featured on the front page of the Sunday edition of Joongang, a major Korean newspaper. Other media outlets furthered the coverage, spotlighting Kim Ok-kyun’s efforts toward reform and engagement with British diplomacy.

The story placed the Library on the international stage and underscored the significance of our heritage collections for global scholarship and public interest alike.

Together with colleagues in the Public Engagement and Participation teams, the Japanese and Korean Section worked closely with the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) on a series of activities.

On July 12, 2025, the University Library hosted the very first “Korea Day” in Cambridge. The event showcased the richness of Korean culture through a lively programme; morning and afternoon sessions featuring a Korean calligraphy workshop, embroidery demonstrations, pop-up displays of our collections, a VR experience, and two keynote talks by prize-winning Korean-American author Juhea Kim, and Dr Sun Seunghye, Director of KCCUK.

It was a moment to celebrate both our collection and our connection with broader audiences, engaging the Korean community in Cambridge and London.

The Korean collections also featured in a new web series “Korean Treasures in the University of Cambridge”, designed by Dr Sun Seunghye and produced by KCCUK. Six of seven episodes focus on holdings in Cambridge University Library, including Kim Ok-kyun’s letter and the collecting endeavours of Miss C. G. Lucy Nevile.

Finally, a selection of items in our Korean collections featured in the London-based exhibition “Endless Bonds”, curated by Jaemin Cha at the Korean Cultural Centre UK. These outreach activities clearly amplified interest in our collection and reinforced our role as a gateway for Korean cultural heritage in the UK.

Together, these activities exemplify how the Japanese and Korean Section is transforming our holdings into vibrant, accessible public assets. We are not merely custodians of documents; we are connectors – linking history with contemporary culture, academia with community, and Cambridge with a global Korean-heritage network.

These efforts have elevated our visibility, strengthened community ties, and opened up new pathways for engagement and collaboration.

Creative thinking in the delivery, reach and content of our teaching and training across Libraries and Archives provides vital support to the diverse communities we serve across the University.

Championing Fair Attribution for Technicians

Research technical professionals remain an under-served group when it comes to training and recognition. To address this, Frances Marsh (Plant Sciences Librarian) and Lucy Woolhouse (Genetics Librarian) developed Fair Attribution and Publishing for Technicians, a workshop designed to demystify the publication process and introduce tools such as ORCID and the CRediT taxonomy. Their aim was to empower technicians to seek appropriate acknowledgement in research outputs.

After a successful pilot in 2023, the workshop became part of the Research Skills Training Programme. During 2024–25, three sessions open to all technical staff were delivered, alongside bespoke sessions for Cancer Research UK, the Institute of Metabolic Science and the Library’s Conservation Department.

In total, 95 research technical professionals participated. Feedback was exceptionally positive, including comments such as: “It was perfect," and “I think it's really important to have this training… I would recommend it to technicians and I hope that more people attend in the future.”

Beyond delivering training, Frances and Lucy are now active advocates for fair attribution through the University’s Technician Commitment Network, founding members of the GLAM Technicians Forum launched in March 2025, and frequent speakers at sector events including DARTS9. Their contribution was recognised in December 2024 with a Professional Services Recognition Scheme Award for Creating an Inclusive Community, and they are now leading a research project funded through an Enhancing Research Culture Grant.

Building Community Through Academic Writing Workshops

Writing remains central to scholarly life, yet opportunities to explore writing practices are limited. To meet a growing need for structured, supportive spaces, we launched a new series of in-person Academic Writing Workshops at the University Library in Michaelmas 2024. These sessions attracted nearly 200 participants, from undergraduates and PhD students to postdoctoral researchers, established academics and visiting scholars.

Each workshop combines discussion-led exploration of common challenges, such as writer’s block, motivation and structuring ideas, with practical activities including creative warm-ups, collaborative problem solving and Pomodoro-style writing blocks.

The sessions have quickly become valued spaces for connection: participants frequently stay after the workshops end to share experiences, crowdsource tips and form their own writing groups.

Many have remarked on how the workshops help counteract the isolation often reported by PhD students and postdocs. Building on this success, we will introduce a new series focusing on structuring writing, developing an argument and cultivating academic voice.

Expanding Reach Through Live Online Training

To increase flexibility and accessibility, particularly for users with limited time or those unable to attend in person, we launched Live Online training sessions in March 2025 as part of the Library Skills Lab. Delivered from the West Hub’s Media Lab by the Technology Libraries team, the sessions use professional-quality sound and video to create an engaging and interactive remote learning experience.

Topics include several of our most highly requested sessions, such as Presentation Skills and Conference Poster Design. Attendance has extended well beyond the University: alongside Cambridge researchers and students, sessions have drawn members of the public and participants from other institutions.

Feedback has been enthusiastic, with attendees saying: “Thank you, that was a very useful and informative session. I really enjoyed it,” and “Thank you so so much for this session! Very useful!!!”

The initiative demonstrates how digital delivery can not only broaden reach but also strengthen civic engagement by opening our expertise to wider audiences.

Together, these developments show how we are evolving our teaching to ensure it remains inclusive, responsive and impactful. By addressing gaps in support for technical professionals, creating collaborative spaces for academic writing, and embracing high-quality digital delivery, we are broadening access to skills, strengthening research culture and supporting the changing needs of our academic community.

The Ray Dolby Centre is the new home of the Cavendish Laboratory, the University of Cambridge's Department of Physics.

The Rayleigh Library opened for Easter Term 2025 and is located in the heart of the building.

This is a beautiful space, fully accessible to the public, and offering a traditional library experience in a modern setting. The collections have been refined to facilitate an enticing browsing experience, and a range of reader engagement activities and wellbeing support.

The Ray Dolby Centre is adjacent to the West Hub, and these buildings are a focal point for the West Cambridge community. Working as a pair, the Rayleigh and West Hub Libraries offer a wide variety of study experiences, with something to suit all needs.

The Rayleigh Library is well equipped for quiet, independent study, while West Hub focusses on collaborative working and innovation.

We will use these libraries as a focus for a unified service offer supporting all West Cambridge communities.

As a major milestone is reached, we reflect on how the "second life" of datasets is impacting the research world.

Apollo, managed by the research data team at the library, stores and preserves the University’s research outputs, across all disciplines. The research data is vast and includes movie files, images, audio recordings, code, text, CSV files and more. Apollo also hosts methods.

On reaching our 5000 datasets milestone, Professor Sir John Aston, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, said: “Sharing data propels research forward. It recognises the importance of the original datasets in their own right, and the researchers who worked on them."

One example is a dataset deposited by Douglas Brion at the end of his PhD in the Engineering department. Brion’s dataset, titled Data set for “Generalisable 3D printing error detection and correction via multi-head neural networks” has been downloaded 2,600 times and has been featured in 20 news publications.

Adrien Lefauve, in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, considers that data sharing gives his data “a second life” by allowing researchers to reuse it in pursuit of new projects.  

Members of the University of Cambridge can deposit their data on the institutional repository, Apollo. Everyone can search Apollo.

It was another bumper year for Cambridge Digital Library with nine new digital collections, taking the total to one hundred. The platform now hosts over 1,063,600 images of 52,700 items.

Additions this year included fifty-two oracle bone 3D models as part of the Sally T. WongAvery Digital Collection.

It has also been a year of significant developments both behind the scenes and in how our digitised collections reach beyond the library building.

A more modern underlying search engine has improved discoverability of digitised collections and associated research outputs for users. It has also improved efficiency and will provide new ways to explore what we can do to build on search and discovery developments.

The team behind Cambridge Digital Library have also been engaging with new groups of users. Direct involvement in teaching on a variety of programmes through Cambridge Digital Humanities, has enabled more students and researchers than ever to learn from, and work with, our digitised collections and the facilities within the library.

We collaborated with Wikimedia UK and The Heritage Lab in India on their Open Knowledge Fellowship programme, which brought fresh perspectives and uncovered untold stories related to South Asian collections housed in the UK.

Research into ‘Encountering Digital Collections’ featured a symposium that involved participants from over 15 institutions coming together to deepen our understanding of our digitised landscapes. Their use in critical pedagogy through place-based action research was also explored at the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association 2025 Annual Event.

New Collections include:

Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company

Gonville and Caius College

Korean Works

Merlin Fragment

Mediterranean Embroideries

Michaelides Fragments: Coptic

Scott Polar Research Institute

Spinning House Committals Books

Sally T. WongAvery Digital Collection of Chinese Materials

Supporters of the University of Cambridge Libraries and Archives become a part of our history, helping to preserve and enhance our collections for future generations.

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. Their contributions enable us to grow, share, and care for our world-class collections.

We are hugely appreciative of all our supporters, including: Mark Andrews, Arts Council England, Avery-Tsui Foundation, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, Yvonne Burt, Ann D Foundation, Dr Chris Dobson, Friends of the Nations' Libraries, Carol D. Frost, Nigel Grimshaw, Gurnee Hart, Martin Heyworth, Stephen Irish, Chris Jones, Jonathan Kandel, Derek Kaufman, Ryan Lewis, The Second Joseph Aaron Littman Foundation, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey, Professor Eric Nye and Professor Carol D. Frost, The Polonsky Foundation, Stuart Rose Family Foundation, The Rothschild Foundation, The T. S. Eliot Foundation and other generous donors who wish to remain anonymous and those who have pledged a legacy.

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.

Public Engagement Events

2,176 people attended 55 public events between August 2024 and July 2025. See the highlights below:

MURDER BY THE BOOK EVENTS

Our Murder by the Book crime fiction exhibition continued with supporting events, including an in-conversation with Nicola Upson and Mandy Morton on ‘A Mind to Murder: Celebrating P. D. James’, and two exhibition tours (August)

ENDLESS STORIES EVENTS

Exhibition events explored the breadth of the exceptionally rare manuscripts from around the world that were on display in Endless Stories, curated by Munby Fellow, Dr Majid Daneshgar. Events included the online talk, ‘Erpenius’ Library: The Excellence of a Dutch Arabist’ with Dr Daneshgar (October), an in-conversation with Professor Josephine Quinn on her book, ‘How the World Made the West: A 1000 Year History’ (January), and an exhibition tour exploring the conservation techniques required to preserve and display the items on show (January).

CURIOUS CURES EVENTS

Events for our curious audience provided a gateway into understanding the complex and intriguing world of medieval medicine. From talks including an ‘In-conversation with the curator’ with Dr James Freeman (May) and a book club discussion on A Plague on Both Your Houses by Susanna Gregory (May), through to hands-on activities including our after-hours Library Late (June) and a workshop on illuminated lettering with artist Sarah Davis (July).

THE REALLY POPULAR BOOK CLUB

Our monthly, online book club continued with powerful books that challenged us to question our ideas about race, religion, sexuality, and more. Sessions included The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.