Tag Archives: University of Reading

Top Ten Treasures from the Archives: Henry II charter

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Our collections richer than most people would imagine and cover a wide variety of subjects and historical periods. To give you an idea of what’s there, University Archivist Guy Baxter will be introducing his ‘Top Ten Treasures’ over the coming weeks, picking highlights from the archive collections here at Reading. Enjoy!

Treasure No. 1:

Henry II charter1

Guy writes, ‘My first choice is in fact the oldest archival document held by the University: a charter of Henry II to the Abbey of St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte, issued at Westminster sometime between 1155 and 1158. This manuscript is complemented by a comprehensive collection of photocopies of images and transcripts of the charters and other acts of the Angevin Kings of England, including Henry’s sons Richard the Lion-Heart and King John.’

For those interested in medieval history, our archives contain other relevant items such as examples of 12th- and 13th-century York charters (MS 1148/13/4), the Stenton Coin Collection and a 15th century Book of Hours (MS 2087).

Archives & Texts lecture series

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An autumn series from the Department of English Literature and Department of Modern Languages and European Studies, open to all University members.

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Monday 21 October (wk 3)

Dr Erica Brown (English, Sheffield Hallam)
‘Building an archive of popular fiction 1900–50: Sheffield Hallam University’s Readerships and Literary Cultures collection’

Monday 4 November (wk 5)

Dr Nicola Abram (English, Reading)
‘Exploring Black British Women’s Theatre’
(part of Reading’s Black History Month)

Monday 2 December (week 9)

Stefano Bragato (Modern Languages, Reading)
‘How to write a futurist life: the notebooks of F.T. Marinetti between reality and invention’

 

All events at 5pm in Humss Room 301. All welcome! For further information, contact Dr Nicola Wilson and Dr Alison Martin (http://archivesandtexts.wordpress.com/)

A unique offer: Collections-Based Research at the University of Reading

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Have you heard about the collections-based research programme here at Reading? Head of UMASC Kate Arnold-Forster and Head of the School of Literature and Languages Alison Donnell take a look at the ways in which collections-based research is changing the landscape of doctoral work. 

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This October, we’ll be welcoming the first cohort of a unique doctoral skills training programme here at Reading. Drawing on the extensive research potential of the University’s internationally recognised museums and collections, this programme will train doctoral students in the practical skills and intellectual sensitivities essential for quality collections-based research.

The programme responds to the notable ‘material turn’ within humanities research but reaches across and beyond this field to generate a multidisciplinary environment for postgraduate primary source and object-based learning. Our first cohort will embark on research projects across Archaeology, English, Italian, History, Film and Theatre, Typography and Classics – working on collections as diverse as evacuee diaries, Greek vases and Mills and Boon editorial papers. The main objective of this new programme is to develop skills in interdisciplinary approaches to objects and archives so that research students are equipped to fully explore the visual, historical, cultural and material aspects of their research collections.

The doctoral skills programme will also take advantage of the exceptional range of scholarly and practice-based opportunities that a combination of the University’s world class researchers, facilities and strong professional and external links with stakeholder organisations can provide.  As well as writing their theses, students will have opportunities for placements and public engagement work that will enhance their employability by exposing them to experiences that may support future careers within and beyond academia. Building on recent investment in new teaching and learning expertise, the programme fits well with initiatives to embed collections-based teaching in undergraduate courses and will be a genuinely collaborative endeavour in harnessing a combination of academic knowledge and the experience and expertise of the University’s collections staff.

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Collections like the Beckett Archives are key resources for the programme

The University’s outstanding museums and collections will provide the key resource for this programme and act as an impressive focal point for developing the skills required to invigorate postgraduate research culture across a wide spectrum of disciplines. These collections are regarded as significant and unique both nationally and internationally. Three are nationally-designated: the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), the Beckett Archive and the Archive of British Publishing and Printing. In addition the programme will engage the University’s other outstanding museums, the Cole Museum of Zoology and the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, departmental research and teaching collections (such as those of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, and the Herbarium), as well as smaller teaching sets such as a fine representative collection of 16th- to 20th- century drawings by European artists in the Department of Art.

Museum Studies Programme Director Dr Rhianedd Smith

What is exciting is the speed with which the programme has attracted new partnership opportunities for students, researchers and collections specialists to work collaboratively in building what we believe is a nationally distinctive and innovative pathway to a PhD. For example, Dr Teresa Murjas and Dr Lisa Purse from FTT will be supervising a research-practice PhD based on MERL’s Evacuee Archive. Funding from the Arts Council (ACE) has contributed to essential cataloguing and digitisation and to support an associated project that will allow Dr Murjas to develop a performance based on the Archive. At the same time, strategic opportunities are already beginning to shape this new programme as we build links with a number of independent research organisations (IROs) who now develop the projects for AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards. This year, students on our pilot training will have the chance to join training workshops for London-based IROs, such as the National Archives and British Museum, and students from these institutions will be joining us.

In a rapidly evolving environment for arts and humanities research, the long term aim of this new doctoral training programme is to strengthen Reading’s leading position in Collections-Based Research. It will take advantage of the remarkable quality and scope of the University’s museums and collections to attract postgraduate students, both nationally and internationally, and to build a community of researchers genuinely equipped to reveal, understand and communicate the potential of the university’s vast reserves of still hidden research treasures.

Heritage Open Days: Behind the scenes at Special Collections

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As part of last weekend’s national Heritage Open Days event, MERL and Special Collections offered ‘behind the scenes’ tours, from a look round the Victorian biscuit baron home to a visit to the special collections and object stores.

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Intrepid tour guides Stuart and Nancy

The tours began outside; the light drizzle didn’t seem to put anyone off, and large umbrellas allowed them to take a look at the building that forms the foundations of the current MERL/Special Collections site: the Grade II listed building originally known as East Thorpe. East Thorpe, which now forms the central part of the current site, was the home of Sir Alfred Palmer of the Huntley and Palmers biscuit company.

East Thorpe was designed and built by the architect Alfred Waterhouse between 1880 and 1882, and Alfred Palmer lived there with his family following his marriage. This building was later acquired by the University, and was extended to form St. Andrews Hall, a University hall of residence. The hall believed to be the first English hall of residence outside of London to provide female-only accommodation. It closed in 2001.

The Hall’s Dining Room, formerly the Palmers’ living and dining room, is now the Special Collections Reading Room. (MERL ref: P DX322 PH1/DL/761)

After a look at the former stables from the front (now open access library rooms), tour group trooped inside to see the former entrance hall, morning room, drawing room and dining room. These rooms are now the Special Collections Reading Room, but you can see remnants of their former use in their exquisitely tiled fireplaces and the serving hatch to the former kitchen.

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A selection of memorabilia from our Great Exhibition Collection

On Thursday and Friday, the tour groups then headed down the hallway and into our rare book and archive store, where archivist Nancy Fulford had pulled out a selection of some of our more interesting items. The groups got to peek at some of our Great Exhibition Collection, peer over our Book of Hours and first edition of Hooke’s Micrographia and look at some of our new acquisitions. On Friday and Saturday, groups were led into the object store of the Museum of English Rural Life, where they got to see the thousands of items that explore rural life, from farming to crafts to technology.

If you missed Heritage Open Days, you can still book onto a tour of the museum on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays. We’ll also be offering Victorian Christmas guided tours in December -taking you back to join the Palmer family and their staff in celebrating Christmas 1882. Keep an eye on our What’s On pages for more information. In the meantime, if you’re interested in the history of the buildings, you can visit our online exhibition.

To glove or not to glove

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whiteglove

What happens when you put on gloves? Can you handle clasps, ties or other delicate items? Can you turn a page? Are you clumsier? Can you feel things through your gloves?

When people picture librarians and archivists with fragile material, they often assume that cotton white gloves come with the territory. Despite what you may see on some television programmes, many libraries and archives recommend not using gloves on a regular basis. Here at Reading Special Collections, we only use gloves for very specific types of material, like glass negatives, that would be damaged by fingers – and usually we recommend latex or nitrile gloves rather than white cotton ones.

Why don’t we use white cotton gloves?

  • Gloves reduce your dexterity. In other words, they can make you clumsier. Gloves, particularly white cotton ones, aren’t very fitted. You can’t grip things as well or as carefully with them on as you can with bare fingertips, which means it’s much easier to tear a page  accidentally when you’re wearing gloves.
  • Gloves get dirty. White cotton gloves aren’t sterile, and their absorbent fabric surface picks up lots of dirt and debris. As our visitors know, old manuscripts and books can get your hands filthy! When all this dirt ends up on gloves, it can transfer to other books and manuscripts and cause damage.
  • Gloves stop you from learning about an item. Many scholars – and indeed our staff – need to know about an item’s physical qualities. The feel of the paper can tell you more about its history and production, for example. This type of engagement with the physical object becomes impossible when you’re wearing cotton gloves.

So what do we recommend instead? Handle our manuscripts and rare books with clean, dry hands. We might ask you to use gloves for certain items in our collections that react more strongly to dirt or human oils – some glass negatives, art or other delicate objects, for example. But on the whole, if you are clean and careful in your handling, your skin won’t cause any significant damage. This short video from the British Library shows how NOT to handle a manuscript with gloves.

Interested in learning more? ‘Misperceptions about White Gloves’ is a great starting point from the IFLA International Preservation News journal. You can also take a look at the National Archives and British Library policies on gloves use.

Favourite finds: Come to the Farm

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Come to the Farm

Come to the Farm [CHILDREN’S COLLECTIONS 360 GUN]

I’m Liz McCarthy, one of the two UMASCS Librarians. One of the best parts of my job is discovering things – whether that’s finding interesting material in our collections, adding items to the library or simply learning new things about our collections from a researcher.

Earlier this summer, I found a charming little book at a London bookseller’s shop, and I thought it was a perfect fit for us. It’s a tiny book, only about 10 cm tall, called Come to the Farm. It was published as part of a series called Tuck’s Better Little Books, and one of what were often called ‘Air Raid Booklets’. Published during the war, these small economic booklets (mainly for kids) could easily be carried in your pocket to an air raid. The subjects ranged from pure entertainment (bedtime stories, fairy tales) to educational or propaganda material (Brave Boys in War, I’m a Land Girl).

In Come to the Farm, two children named Joan and Peter explore a farm for the first time, learning about the buildings, animals and work as well as the answers to such pressing questions as ‘Why do the roads and hedges twist about so much?’ and ‘What do pigs eat?’ It’s ‘the most exciting day they’d had for months’, and it may be that the book was designed to help young children feel more secure about evacuations to the countryside. Although evacuations had largely scaled down by 1942, the uncertainty of the war made the possibility of further moves a very real one.

Come to the Farm is part of our Children’s Collection, but it touches on other areas of relevance to our readers and researchers. MERL researchers may be interested in the descriptions of farm life to children, and the wartime farm focus certainly complements our Evacuee Archive. Please do call up the book and take a look!

Research Tip: Our A-Z lists

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One of the quickest ways to find out about our collections – and whether we have a particular collection – is to use our A to Z index.  Although the list is in progress, it includes nearly 200 archive, rare book and other special collections held by the University. Each collection has its own page with a description of scope and content as well as a link to catalogue details.

It is worth noting that we  have recently launched a similar A-Z index of MERL’s archive collections, which has been undertaken as part of the Reading Connections project.

Freud at Reading

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Brian Ryder is 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.

One hundred years ago, Sigmund Freud despaired of ever seeing published (as The Interpretation of Dreams) the English translation of his book Die Traumdeutung. His publishers, George Allen & Company, normally corresponded on this matter with translator AA Brill, an Austrian disciple of Freud’s living in the United States. However, in January 1913 they wrote directly to the author asking that various references to sexual matters be omitted, pleading that were this not to be done the book would have to be restricted in its sale only to those with a professional interest in its subject.

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Freud’s letter to his publishers

On 1 February 1913 Freud replied in German from Vienna (see AU C 2/13). Spencer Stallybrass, George Allen’s company secretary, translated the letter so that it could be considered by the editorial management. Stallybrass carefully folded the letter precisely in half and, in the hand which made the company’s board minutes so easily read and understood, wrote on the back the following:

Dear Sirs

I much regret that, in consequence of your opinion, you found it necessary to make such a request of me. In order not to embarrass either yourselves or the translator, I am prepared to consent to the desired omissions in so far as Dr Brill agrees to them, and I will write to him to this effect.

I wish you a speedy settlement of the matter, and success to the undertaking.

Yours respectfully

Freud

Freud Letter - Translation

A translation of Freud’s letter by the company secretary

The book was immediately published and has been in print ever since. In 1914 George Allen & Company, unable to continue in business, was purchased from the receiver by Stanley Unwin and became George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Freud’s letter remained folded and unmentioned in any catalogue until it was discovered during preparations in 2000 for the Allen & Unwin archive to be made searchable online.

In 1929 Allen & Unwin published another book of interest to Freud and his circle, this time entitled A Young Girl’s Diary, anonymous but with an introduction by Freud. It was translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, favourites of Stanley Unwin who believed that no satisfactory translation could be completed which was other than into the translator’s first language (in the 1950s the translations of Freud’s work by Brill, for whom German was his first language, were replaced by new ones by James Strachey). A Young Girl’s Diary attracted the attentions of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the publisher was forced to do what George Allen had feared – booksellers who ordered it were instructed that it should only be sold to members of the medical, legal and educational professions (see AUC 5/15).

Behind the scenes: Hogarth Press transcription project

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Hogarth Press ledgers

Hogarth Press order books

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 Archive sits in the Special Collections of the university, available to researchers who have the permission of Random House (who own the archive) and that of the relevant author’s estate, who hold the copyright for the material. My task for the past six weeks has been to transcribe into Excel some of the handwritten entries detailing the orders for Virginia Woolf’s novels and essays in the original order books kept by the firm. In this modern age of digitisation and data sharing throughout the world, it seems only sensible to make information available digitally or in this case electronically for future online access to researchers globally.

Hogarth Press order books - page view

Hogarth Press order books – page view

The process of transcription is at times a slow one. The records are extremely detailed, listing information such as customer, location, date of dispatch and payment, and the exact amount received by the press. On top of this the issue of legibility slows progress considerably, some handwriting being clear and easy to transcribe, some much more difficult due to highly stylised penmanship. Over the course of the past six weeks, I have transcribed the records for four Virginia Woolf novels, namely Between the Acts, The Years, To the Lighthouse, and A Room of One’s Own, with total sales figures ranging from around 4,500 copies to around 15,000 copies.

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf

Transcription may not sound too thrilling a task, but the excitement comes from the long lasting benefits this research could provide to Woolf scholars everywhere. Currently researchers wishing to consult the order books need to visit the Special Collections in person or enlist someone to carry out the research on their behalf. The ultimate goal of this project is for these transcriptions to be made available online as part of the Modernist Archives Publishing Project (MAPP) This will enable scholars throughout the world to access this information, which will appear alongside other types of research and digitised archival material relating to modernist authors and publishing.

My part, however, is just the first step. There’s no telling how long it will take for other parts of the archives to be transcribed and digitised, but perhaps these past six weeks may provide an example of how much can be achieved, and of the benefits of such a project. I have every hope that this project will succeed, and also grow to exceed initial aims and expectations, and I for one will be following its progress every step of the way.

The Years - Virginia Woolf

The Years – Virginia Woolf

As well as providing a useful tool for future research, I too have gained from this project. Before now I had never been to MERL and the Special Collections, never worked with archives, and never carried out research of this kind. I came to this project hoping to discern whether or not I would be interested in postgraduate research, and whether or not I could do this directly after graduating, and I have learned without a doubt that I could indeed go straight into postgraduate research. Working alongside scholars and archivists provides a completely different experience to that of undergraduate research, and it is an experience which I would highly recommend.

Using Special Collections for teaching and research

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Using Special Collections material from our archive and rare book collections for teaching as part of a seminar or lecture can be a very rewarding experience for lecturers and students alike.

The excellent teaching facilities at Special Collections Services include two meeting rooms, which can be used by teaching groups who need to work with the collections, including seminars and conferences. The rooms are available for use by both University academic staff and students, and external groups and societies. For more information, see our Teaching and Research Facilities web page.

The Westminster Conference Room at the Special Collections Service

The Westminster Conference Room at the Special Collections Service

Also on this page, read some case studies from University of Reading academics who have incorporated Special Collections material into their teaching, and discover more about the benefits to academic staff and students in using Special Collections material in teaching and learning.