A fascinating talk by Lawrence Zeegen with a pop up exhibition was held last night to celebrate the centenary of Ladybird Books. Let our University Archivist, Guy Baxter, fill you in:  

Lawrence Zeegen delivering his Ladybird by Design lecture

We were really pleased to welcome over 80 people to our Ladybird Books centenary event last night. They were treated to a really fascinating and enthusiastic lecture by Lawrence Zeegen, the author of a new book, Ladybird by Design (available at the MERL shop). Showing off some amazing visuals from the iconic books, Lawrence, who is also Professor of Illustration at the London College of Communication, took us through some of the most important series and assessed their cultural context and impact, as well as their design history. He delved into some of the most fascinating areas, such as how the format was devised – as a result of paper shortages – and how Ladybird were persuaded to move into non-fiction children’s books. Lawrence also highlighted the incredible investment that the company made in producing the Key Words reading scheme (i.e. Peter and Jane) in the 1960s. The lecture brought together the best possible elements – an enthusiastic and knowledgeable speaker, an enthusiastic and knowledgeable audience, and some fascinating and visually stunning content.

Ladybird by Design pop up exhibition, Caroline Gould, Lawrence Zeegen and Guy Baxter

Accompanying the talk, was a beautiful pop-up display curated by Special Collections staff Claire Wooldridge and Danni Corfield, which showed a wide range of original Ladybird artwork and books. Here at Reading we hold over 700 boxes of artwork – so at least 18,000 individual pieces, and it was lovely to see so many out for people to see. The production of the Ladybird by Design book, and of the exhibition of the same name at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill – to which we have lent over 200 artworks – has involved Lawrence and the production team at Ladybird looking at thousands of pieces of artwork in our store. What a fabulous and pleasurable job to have!

Audience members viewing Ladybird by Design pop up exhibition

Our collaborations with Ladybird this year have been really productive and interesting. Thanks are due to the team there – especially Sara Glenn  – and to Lawrence, for making this possible, and also to Caroline Gould, who facilitated the enormous De La Warr loan on behalf of Special Collections. What an achievement!

Our very own Verity Burke, a PhD researcher in our collections-based research programme, is joining the international humanities Twitter account We the Humanities as this week’s guest curator. We’re pretty excited, and she has already been giving some great glimpses into our collections.

@wethehumanities is led by a different guest curator each week; it offers a central platform for discussion and news of the humanities in all its forms. It is open to anyone working in or with the humanities in any form, and hopes to follow the success achieved by the science platform, @realscientists.

Verity, who tweets at @dicksnensian, will be discussing the use of collections (particularly our Cole Library), and the intersections between science, medicine, art and literature. She says there will be a nudge of Victorian crime, a cap-doff to living the research experience more generally, and a jolly good brew-ha about anatomies over a digital cuppa. Find out more by following and participating in the conversation, and via Verity’s blog on http://www.wethehumanities.org.

We the Humanities, which is now in its second year, has attracted tweeters from across six continents, ranging from professors to Masters students and from museum curators to musicians.  The discussions engages with more than 2,400 followers from across the world, including everyone from lifetime specialists to the mildly curious. The account has developed to include a blog and events listings, housed at http://www.wethehumanities.org.

Written by Fiona Melhuish, UMASCS Librarian

If you are passing the University Library on the Whiteknights campus, please do have a look at our new exhibition in the display cases on either side of the lifts in the Library foyer. Come to the farm : children’s books on farming is a celebration of books on farms and farming for children selected from the Children’s Collection, part of the University of Reading rare book collections, and the library of the Museum of English Rural Life.

The exhibits range from an early nineteenth century book on farming and ‘rural economy’ for children [see item on the left in image above] to a twentieth century pop-up book of a Victorian farmhouse [see image below]. The exhibition also features a selection of Ladybird books on farms and farming from our Ladybird collections. Look out for the pop-up book farmhouse, complete with a tiny washing line on a piece of thread [see image below]!

It’s almost Christmas! That means good cheer, Christmas spirit and….a fight to the death competition?!

We’re in a 12 Days of Christmas #12off competition with the Museum of English Rural Life and the Ure Museum, and we’d like to think that we’re coming out on top. Here are this week’s offerings – follow us on Twitter or Tumblr to see the rest next week!

MERL and local publisher Two Rivers Press brought together twenty-one local poets (collectively known as a ‘rhyme of poets’ perhaps?!) on the evening of Monday 28 July to launch the publication of the new Two Rivers Press book, The Arts of Peace: An Anthology of Poems, edited by Adrian Blamires and Peter Robinson.

Front cover of ‘The Arts of Peace’ anthology

Forty-five people came to enjoy a glass of wine and an evening of poetry at the Poetry in the Garden event, now in its sixth year, in which each of the poets read one of their poems from the anthology. The evening was hosted by Adrian Blamires, one of the editors of the anthology, and the poets included Claire Dyer, Peter Robinson, A F Harrold, Ian House, Gill Learner, Derek Beaven, Susan Utting, Vahni Capildeo and Lesley Saunders.

This was a different arrangement from our usual ‘four poets’ format but the variety of styles blended well together, united by the themes of peace and war and, in a number of cases, drawing on family stories, wartime experiences and personal memories. As one visitor said, it was such a privilege to hear poets reading their own work.

As rain was forecast for the late afternoon at one stage, Poetry in the Garden became Poetry in the Museum but the introductory area of the museum with spot-lit stage area and dramatic screen backdrop provided an intimate yet professional-looking performance space for the readings.

The poet Adrian Blamires gives an introduction to the anthology

Many thanks to Two Rivers Press and to all the poets for a very enjoyable evening!