Fragments of medieval manuscripts
Unknown to many members of the public, Special Collections holds an intriguing assortment of medieval manuscript fragments. They are part of the John and Griselda Lewis Collection, a fascinating collection which consists of some 20,000 items illustrating the history of printing and graphic design from the fourteenth century to the present day. I have had the […]
Reading Readers – Jenny
For the second in our Reading Readers series, Jenny tells us about the exciting discoveries she has made about the world of publishing in the Chatto & Windus letter books. I started working as a volunteer in the Special Collections about two years ago, my task being to join the team transcribing the archive of letters from […]
Volunteer’s Voice: Sophie
This week is Volunteers’ Week and we are celebrating the wonderful work done by our volunteers and thanking them for all the hours and effort they put into making the museum the best it can possibly be. To showcase our brilliant volunteers every day this week we will be posting across our MERL and Special […]
Not strictly ballroom: Kon-Tiki and dancing the hula with Princess Margaret
This post comes from Brian Ryder, one of our volunteers here at Special Collections. Brian’s history with Reading collections is a long one; he used to be one of our project cataloguers and is now working his way through the Routledge & Kegan Paul archive. In 1948, Philip Unwin of publishers George Allen & Unwin went […]
Behind the scenes: Volunteering at Special Collections
Today’s post comes from Eleanor Wale, a former volunteer for our library team as well as in MERL. Eleanor’s volunteering stood her in good stead, and she is now the Library Graduate Trainee for Christ’s College, Cambridge. Having been a volunteer at both the University of Reading’s Special Collections and the Museum of English Rural […]
Favourite finds: Eric Partridge and his war of words
This post comes from Brian Ryder, one of our volunteers here at Special Collections. Brian’s history with Reading collections is a long one; he used to be one of our project cataloguers and is now working his way through the Routledge & Kegan Paul archive. From September 1943 until January 1945 A/C [Aircraftman] Eric Partridge was […]
Behind the scenes: Work experience at Special Collections
Today’s post in from Anna, who spent her week of work experience on the library side of Special Collections. I applied for work experience at the Reading University Library because I adore books and I have been thinking about becoming a librarian. When I found out that I would be working in Special Collections I […]
A snapshot of 19th Century publishing
Last summer volunteer Jenny Knight began work on the mammoth task of transcribing the indexes to the letter books of outgoing correspondence in the Chatto & Windus publisher’s archive. The early letter books are an invaluable source of information as loose files of correspondence were sent for salvage during the First World War and most […]
Behind the scenes: Hogarth Press transcription project
Our latest post comes from Dale, who has recently completed a six week UROP placement here at special collections. Dale has made a great start on the project entitled ‘Selling the books of Virginia Woolf’ using the Hogarth Press Archive and is about to enter his final year studying with the English department. The Hogarth Press […]