Issue 10/January 2019
INSIDE: Parochial footnotes • Highs and lows of life in theatre • Sylva: to slowy trace the forest’s shady scene
DISCOVER The University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections
Spotlight
Welcome
Welcome Welcome to the latest edition of Discover, the University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections’ newsletter. I’d like to take this opportunity to send readers our best wishes for the New Year. In the last edition, I was pleased to report our success in acquiring the papers of Ada Clarke, DH Lawrence’s younger sister. During the summer, we were very pleased to acquire further items for our designated DH Lawrence collection. The manuscript ‘Note on Miss Mollie L Skinner’, 1924, is unusual in that it is written on two postcards of scenes from Mexico and describes Lawrence’s first meeting with his future collaborator Mollie Skinner in Western Australia. In the manuscript of A Little Moonshine With Lemon, 1925, Lawrence reminisces about life on the ranch in New Mexico, while drinking a glass of vermouth on the Italian Riviera. The final acquisition is a small archive relating to the first US publication of an unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by the Grove Press in 1959, which contains a fascinating insight into the US court process in the year before the Chatterley trial in the UK. Last issue I also reported on the award of a grant by the Wellcome Trust to catalogue, preserve and selectively digitise papers relating to the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at the University. I am delighted to report that we have now appointed the project team: Zoe Ellis has been seconded as Project Archivist, Rachael Orchard recruited as Archive Assistant and Jonny Davies and Abigail Cobley as Digitisation Assistants; the project officially started in October. In this edition we also report on the digitisation process. One of our hopes was that the project would lead to the discovery of further records relating to MRI and, almost before the team had started work, additional papers of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir Peter Mansfield were discovered in the Imaging Centre which bears his name, and transferred to Manuscripts and Special Collections. If you’d like to find out more about any aspect of our work please do not hesitate to contact me. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy reading this edition of Discover.
Mark Dorrington
Keeper of Manuscripts and Special Collections
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A parish library is a collection of books formed to support the theological and pastoral work of English parish churches. Manuscripts and Special Collections holds the parish libraries of Coleorton, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Oakham, Elston and Loughborough. Debates about the future of public libraries have regularly referenced the legal basis from which this well-regarded British institution originated. The 1850 Public Libraries Act required all local authorities to provide free access to the main published works on which society relied for information. The groundbreaking liberal thinking behind the Act was to offer free access to the printed word for all members of society. However, the 1850 Act was not the first library legislation passed by Parliament. That first Act, the 1709 Act for the Better Preservation of Parochial Libraries, England, came from a comparably philanthropic mindset but favoured only a small part of the community. The 1709 Act instituted support through public funding for book collections available to clerics in rural situations. The libraries remained under the control of the parochial authorities and the main beneficiary was the clergy. The promoter of this legislation was Dr Thomas Bray (1656-1730) on behalf of the Church of England, whose interest at that time was to re-establish its authority by investing in the continuous education of its clergy. Libraries in parish churches existed before 1709. The term “parish library” appears in the 17th century, though even earlier, in the years following the Reformation, there were injunctions and archiepiscopal directives demanding that parish churches should keep copies of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, the Paraphrases by Erasmus and Bishop Jewel’s Defence of the Apology – in addition to an English Bible. The efforts of Bray were apt at the time because of the widely differing standards of service in richly and poorly beneficed parishes in rural England. At the beginning of the 18th century, the great debates about how best to worship God, whether in the Catholic or Protestant faith, had died down. At the dawn of the secular age philosophy, empirical science and industrialisation were casting doubts on the very existence of God. The Church of England needed its clerics to be able to debate and represent the Church’s authority to the emerging middle class. Rich parishes such as Coleorton, Ashby-de-laZouch, Oakham, Elston and Loughborough came to their book collections by way of gifts from individual benefactors, such as the bequest in 1616 to All Saints’ Church, Oakham, by Lady Anne Harington, widow of John, 1st Baron Harington of Exton in Rutland. At the time of the bequest, Anne Harington was recently bereaved of her son John, and it is believed that the books were his library. John had been a student at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge and had bought books while accompanying the Prince of Wales on his travels in Europe. Almost all the books are in Latin and printed in Paris or Basel. The contents hint at an inclination towards pre-reformation theology: Greek
Parish libraries: an 18th-century cultural phenomenon
Rich history of parochial footnotes and Latin Church fathers and medieval scholars, beautifully bound early prints featuring three incunabula. The Harington donation to All Saints’ was done in great style: volumes were re-bound in leather decorated with a gold-tooled fretsdesign derived from the Harington coat of arms. A printed bookplate was devised reading “Ex dono dominae Annae Haringtonae Baronissae”, one of the earliest examples of a woman’s giftplate. It shows the extent to which affluent donors memorialised their identities in the gift of libraries at the time that is remembered for being the year of Shakespeare’s death. For St Helen’s Church in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the main benefactor was a clergyman with roots in the local cloth trade, Rev Thomas Bate (16751727), who in the course of his short life created a large library while serving as chaplain to the Harpur Family of Calke Abbey. Thomas Bate was baptised in St Helen’s and bequeathed his library to the church, naming both the cleric and the parishioners as beneficiaries. This extension of privileges to the local laity was not the norm for parish libraries; it may be an homage to Rev Bate’s father, from whom he had inherited many of the books that made up his library. Bate Sr had been a successful dealer in fine textiles and collector of books, and a prominent enough member of the community to be buried with a monument in St Helen’s. His will, incidentally, helps to date the beginning of this parish library to a time between 1707, when the bibliophile merchant left none of his books to a parish library, and 1712 when the first inscription inside a book makes it out “to the library in the church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch”. The only reason why the father of Rev Bate would not give books to the library must be that in 1707 his parish had no library. The date is significant because, in the first
decade of the century, the impact of Bray’s efforts to establish parish libraries in England coincided with a growing awareness about the value of libraries. In urban settings private book clubs evolved into subscription libraries: this channelled resources to establish and develop libraries. Bray had founded The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and sought initially to establish libraries in the North American colonies but, from 1700, he turned his attention to England and the rural parishes affected by poverty and isolation. Backed by the Church of England, Bray established 80 parish libraries in England and Wales, called “Bray Libraries”, and sourced book grants for many other churches. The library legislation that passed through Parliament thanks to Bray in 1709 benefited parochial libraries, whether established by Bray or not. This initiative responded to the Church’s movement toward philanthropy as an outlet of religious practice and pre-empted the levelling out of unequal access opportunities to information, realised through the 1850 Public Libraries Act and all subsequent library legislation. In this cultural climate the public perspective on parish libraries changed, not least as a result of Bray’s activism. Communities like Ashby-de-la-Zouch took steps to create libraries of their own; elsewhere libraries passed in gift from clergyman to clergyman, such as the bequest to Coleorton Rectory in 1736 by Rev William Hunt, Rector of Thringstone, “for the benefit of the Rector Mr Lebon of Coleorton”, to be “for ever used by the Rector of Coleorton”. Although Manuscripts and Special Collections does not have a Bray Library in its holdings, the libraries kept here took shape in a time marked by Bray’s influence. It is, furthermore, plausible to link the survival of parish libraries, especially those as old as Oakham Parish Library, to the status upgrade they gained in the 18th century.
NEXT ISSUE: The Life and Opinions of a Parish Library: St Helen’s, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
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Recent acquisitions
We have received an influx of University-related archives, thanks in part to our contemporary collecting activities. As always we are very grateful to everyone who has donated items to the archives and helped to ensure their preservation for the future.
Race didn’t go without a hitch We have seen some wonderful additions to one of our newly catalogued collections. The records of the University of Nottingham Cross Country and Athletics Club (UU 20), which featured in our last issue, caught the attention of a former club president. Alan Wilson – who now lives in Australia – captained the Cross Country team to third place in the British Universities Championships in 1964. Mr Wilson has made digital copies of photographs, newspaper cuttings, certificates and running singlets which he treasures from his time at Nottingham. These have been added to the collection along with his written reminiscence about a particularly disastrous Reading to London road race, organised by King’s College, which, due to a catalogue of disasters, ended in him hitching a lift with a motorcyclist to a deserted finish line (everyone else had returned to the pavilion for tea and cakes). Further Athletics Club papers, including race results and newspaper cuttings, collected by David N. Robinson OBE (Geography MSc and Secretary of the Athletics Union in 1953), were donated by his family, along with copies of various University publications such as Gongster and Survey (ACC 2970). Also included was memorabilia from inter-varsity Geography conferences and other events hosted by the Geography department between 1951 and 1953, along with a very rare specimen – a 6in-high replica Chickerah! These were based on the 3ft-tall mascot, which survived various kidnap attempts by students from other institutions. The mascot would regularly make appearances at University dances accompanied by the Chickerah chant:
Ah rah Chickerah roo Ooni pooni ping pong pini Tara wara waxi poo Ah rah Chickerah roo, NOTTINGHAM! Back to black We have worked closely with the Students’ Union this year, and as well as donating born-digital files, promotional materials and photographs, collected by former officers (UU and UMP), they have helped us consider how we can encourage student societies to donate their archives or start a time capsule. A new member of staff in Manuscripts and Special Collections has provided photos and ephemera from one of the shortest-lived societies. Goth Soc existed for just a year, but is fondly remembered by its former
University of Nottingham Cross Country and Athletics Club 1963. Back, L-R: R Pemble, VWH Greeves, M Richardson, J Sizer, BW Perry, JD Richardson, GR Perkins, GC Towler, RA Osborn, Alan Wilson, DJ Downing. Front, L-R: NR Humphries, G Bruce, DE Varley (President), EJ Snelus (Captain), JE Eziashi (Vice-Captain), R Mathews (Coach) DE Brown, SE Harris. UU 20/4/15
Alan Wilson in the lead. UU 20/4/19
Recent acquisitions
The 6in replica Chickerah (below) donated by David Robinson. It is believed to have been produced by the Students’ Union in 1951. ACC 2970
The Carnival issue of the Gongster, 11 May 1951, Vol 3, no 8 featuring the Chickerah mascot. University of Nottingham Collection os.X Periodicals Not 5.G14.2 GON
Below: Chemistry staff WE Evison, NW Cusa, EA Wagstaff, HH Barber in 1931, from the photograph album compiled by Dr Harold Booth. ACC 2962
Above: Secretary of the short-lived GothSoc in her room at Broadgate Flats, c1998 (UU 22/3/1/1)
members, many of whom are in touch with each other via Facebook, and a call has been put out for further materials to add to this small but unusual collection (UU 22). A poster in one photo says: “‘Are you miserable? Do you wear black? Enjoyed The Crow? Then join GothSoc!’” (UU 22/3/1). We have also acquired materials from various University departments. Dr Samantha Tang, Public Awareness Scientist, from the School of Chemistry, is keen to ensure the preservation of an archive compiled by Dr Harold Booth (ACC 2962), who joined Chemistry in the 1950s. He started collecting material about the department in the 1980s. The initial transfer of items includes an architectural drawing of the Chemistry building by Sir Basil Spence dated 1958, and an album of photographs from the 1980s, compiled by Dr Booth. More material is to be transferred, including papers relating to Professor Lieutenant Colonel Brian Duncan Shaw. Books from
the Duncan MacMillan House Staff Library, part of Professor J Cooper’s collection, have been transferred to the Nottingham Psychiatry Collection (PJC). More papers from Professor Stanley Chapman were added to his collection (PSC), and relate to his research, including calico printing, merchant banking and textiles. When catalogued, the collection will be a valuable resource on regional industry – and will no doubt be of great help with the research for our 2019 exhibition on our holdings relating to local textile businesses and trade unions. For those interested in the development of University Park, plans of proposed houses for Wortley Hall Close in 1953, were donated by a former resident (ACC 2958). We also have a collection of plans relating to the Geology, Psychology and Cell Biology Building (ACC 2937), and plans of the Geospatial Building on Jubilee Campus (ACC 2941).
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Recent acquisitions
Highs and lows of a life in theatre
Writer Stephen Lowe has been working closely with Manuscripts and Special Collections to ensure that the archive he has deposited with us is as complete and as representative of his career as possible. We’ve collected further boxes which include material relating to his play Glamour, set in the 1960s, and first performed at Nottingham Playhouse in 2009, and the 2010 Isango Portobello version of Ragged Trouser Philanthropists (Robert Tressell’s working-class novel about a group of painter-decorators) resetting the play in 1950s’ Cape Town. As part of a dissertation module, a student from the School of English has been working with us to look at how Stephen’s recorded reminiscences can enhance the traditional archive catalogue as a guide to his work. A second English student is working on the Coventry
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Patmore Collection, which has two extra publications of Angel in the House, which include autograph letters from Coventry Patmore and Edmond Gosse, 1856-1890. We have also acquired cassettes of Geoff Ward interviewing author Colin Wilson at his home in Cornwall and offered during the International Colin Wilson Conference in July. Other recent additions to the Colin Wilson Archive (CWA) include letters from Colin Wilson to his editor Nick Austin, and papers relating to Ironfoot Jack, a wellknown ‘character’ in Soho in the 1950s. Finally there have also been some DH Lawrence related accessions: Note on Miss M[ollie] L Skinner by DH Lawrence (La C 114); a bound manuscript of the story published under the title A little Moonshine With Lemon from 1925; letters from Frieda Lawrence's daughter; and documents relating to the first US publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover, (La Mc 2/8).
Recent acquisitions Profile
r e l w o B Amy What is your job title and how long have you worked in Manuscripts and Special Collections? I’m an archives assistant in the Collections Team. I’ve worked here for 18 years. I started a few months after graduating from Nottingham Trent University where I studied history. What does your job involve? My main role is to assist the Collections Team by cataloguing the manuscripts that we receive. I catalogue a bit of everything – from 17th-century deeds to 20th-century University records. I’m responsible for cataloguing any acquisitions to the DH Lawrence Collection (archives), which is always being added to. You must know this collection better than others? Absolutely. I’ve built up an extensive knowledge of the DH Lawrence Collection and the Newcastle Collection as when I first started working here I was assigned to help with two Heritage Lottery-funded projects to catalogue these collections. Both have since been designated as outstanding collections by the Arts Council England. What is the Newcastle Collection? It consists of the estate and personal papers of the Dukes of Newcastle who owned Clumber Park and quite a lot of land in north and central Nottinghamshire, as well as estates elsewhere. It includes estate papers, correspondence, accounts, company papers, and property deeds, which are often handwritten in an archaic legal form of English. What else do you do? I do a lot of public service duty in the Reading Room, which keeps you in touch with the things people are researching. I answer enquiries and I also work in the Weston Gallery, help out with classes, and curate displays, primarily in the School of English, where I do a DH Lawrence themed display which changes three times a year.
Students at a seminar in the Trent Building. UMP/7/1.
How did you get into archive work? When I was doing my dissertation, I did a lot of primary research based on the Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Sneinton. Nottinghamshire Archives holds the papers for the asylum so I was in there most days, and I thought archives was an area I’d quite like to work in. What do you enjoy most? I get a real thrill when we’ve had an accession of manuscripts that have perhaps been in someone’s attic or hidden away for decades, or even hundreds of years! When you unpack the documents, you realise that you’re probably the first person to read the material in such a long time. It’s quite a privilege! Tell us about some of your recent projects I’m working on the University’s archives. This is a long-standing project cataloguing the backlog of material we’ve received. I’m listing plans received from Estates – there are probably over 10,000 plans, showing buildings or site plans of the campuses. I’m also cataloguing a large collection of University-related photographs showing student life, scenes around campus and former members of staff, for example. I’m also working on a long-running project to catalogue church court records, which mainly consists of 18th-century schedules of penances. What is your favourite collection or item? The DH Lawrence Collection is my favourite because I’ve come to see it as my pet project over the years! The gem in that collection would be the manuscript of The White Peacock, which was DH Lawrence’s first novel and it’s the only manuscript version of any of Lawrence’s novels in the UK; the rest are in the United States. Have you ever discovered anything unusual or unexpected? We received a collection of papers from the Harrison family (MS 465), who have links with the University. William Charles Harrison was a quite well-known magician or conjuror, and his papers included magic tricks and a crystal ball! His brother Francis Harrison studied at the University, so we have study notes and ephemera from his time here. There are also papers from the brothers’ military service in World War One.
Deeds and papers relating to a conveyance of land in East Markham, Notts, in 1817, Newcastle Collection. Ne 6 D 2/31/1-21.
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Exhibition news
Professor Charles Watkins School of Geography
The release in November 2018 of the new Robin Hood, starring Taron Egerton and Jamie Dorman, emphasises the continuing cultural importance of Sherwood Forest as an internationally recognised imaginative forest. A few months earlier, in August, the impressive Sherwood Forest visitor centre opened at Edwinstowe – a boost for tourism and nature conservation. The exhibition Sylva: ‘To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene’ draws on the extensive archives held by Manuscripts and Special Collections to explore the history of trees and woodlands in Nottinghamshire.
Sylva
‘TO SLOWLY TRACE THE FOREST’S SHADY SCENE’
How people interact with trees and woods has varied dramatically through time and from place to place. Today many are concerned about the loss of woodland and might agree with Lord Byron’s Childe Harold in relishing the forest where ‘mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been’ and oppose this to the solitude to be found in ‘the crowd, the hurry, the shock’ of society. Others find forests threatening and troubling: indeed woodland clearance has often been celebrated as a sign of increasing population and a surrogate for civilisation. Nottinghamshire has an exceptionally rich heritage of woods and forests. In the east of the county are many ancient woodlands formerly vital for fuel and timber and now valued and managed for nature conservation. Towards the west, Sherwood, one of the world’s most famous forests, has a dynamic history of monastic and royal power in the medieval period, and later the rise of powerful aristocratic estates and state forestry. The word forest conjures up images of places dominated by trees and wildness, of sylvan nature untouched by the hands of humans. But the reality of forest history is much more complicated. There was no direct connection between the idea of forest and the concept of woodland: medieval forests were administrative units more akin to a modern national park than extensive areas of planted trees. Forests are sites where the competing interests and demands of villagers, aristocrats, farmers and kings have been played out over centuries. Rather than natural woodlands, they are places dominated by the management of wild and domesticated animals, and by the commercial control of trees. But they are also places of myths, whose landscapes
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Printed map of Nottinghamshire engraved and published by Herman Moll, 1724. The Brettle Collection of Printed Maps of Nottinghamshire, Bre 9.
and legends have provided inspiration to poets, novelists and painters. Hunting was the raison d’être of medieval forests and the spectacle of hunting and its association with military prowess and horsemanship were key to the establishment of power by Norman kings in England. The main animals hunted from the 13th century onwards were the red deer, native to Britain, and the fallow deer,
probably introduced by the Normans via Italy. The larger red deer were chased across open country and were ideal for the scale and terrain of Royal Forests. The smaller fallow deer were often kept as herds within deer parks owned and managed by the gentry. In the 18th century, Nottinghamshire’s ducal estates, including Clumber, Welbeck, Thoresby and Worksop Manor, together with other large estates such
EXHIBITION EVENTS A series of free events will accompany the exhibition. Places are limited: please book on 0115 846 7777. LUNCHTIME TALKS
Djanogly Theatre, 1-2pm. Engraving of a deer hunter by CR Ryley, after a painting by Byng; 1782. Forest Books relating to Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. Ms 72/2.
as Rufford and Newstead, were enthusiastic supporters of the ‘spirit of planting’. In 1799, Hayman Rooke celebrated the efforts being made ‘to adorn this ancient Forest in a manner truly patriotic and worthy of imitation’ and congratulated ‘the many respectable Persons, whose Mansions and Parks border on the Forest’ who had made ‘and continue to make, large Plantations in honour of the splendid Victories gained by our gallant Admirals.’ It was not until the establishment of professional forestry in the later 19th century, and the intermixture of traditional estate woodland management with ideas of scientific forest management introduced from the Continent, that the terms ‘forestry’ and ‘forester’ began to be the normal terms used to describe woodland management and managers. The effect of the First World War on British forestry was both devastating and galvanising. Huge areas of woodland were felled
for the war effort and the Forestry Commission was established in 1919 to encourage efficient forest management. The old oaks of Sherwood Forest are now recognised to be of great nature conservation value for insects, fungi and birds. Conservation agencies have funded the removal of conifers from around the oaks and the fencing off of areas to allow the reintroduction of traditional grazing by sheep and cattle. This is producing a new landscape, but one akin to that of the 18th and 19th centuries. Landowners, government agencies and conservation charities are working to conserve characteristic fragments of heathland and woodland in Sherwood Forest and also to encourage the coppicing of ancient woods such as Treswell Wood and Gamston Wood on the clay soils of eastern Nottinghamshire.
Sylva: ‘To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene’ has been curated by Professor Charles Watkins, of the School of Geography, and staff from Manuscripts and Special Collections, with materials designed by the University’s internal design team. The free exhibition runs from Friday 14 December to Sunday 7 April 2019 at Weston Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts, University Park
Opening hours
Tuesday-Friday 11am-4pm, Saturdays and Sundays 12noon-4pm.
ANCIENT WOODLANDS Thursday 31 January Woodland history is an important tool in nature conservation. Leading forest ecologist and historian Dr George Peterken will discuss how historical maps and records were used to construct the Ancient Woodland Inventory, which identifies and records information about woods that are believed to have been in existence since at least 1600. He shows how history facilitates woodland management decisions and generates public interest and support. THE SHERWOOD FOREST TRUST – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Thursday 21 February The world’s most famous heritage forest, legendary stomping ground of Robin Hood, a magnet for tourists since Victorian times – Sherwood Forest is special. The Sherwood Forest Trust exists to champion the conservation, preservation and celebration of this ancient forest. Dr Patrick Candler, Chief Executive, will talk about how the Trust was formed, the range of works that have been done in the past, where they are at the moment and plans for the future. THE CHANGING NATURE OF SHERWOOD FOREST Thursday 21 March How has Sherwood Forest been represented and understood over the last 400 years? Professor Charles Watkins examines the diverse ways that artists, poets, novelists and naturalists have valued the forest.
TOURS AND WALKS GALLERY TOUR Thursday 31 January 2.30 – 3.30pm Join the curator for a guided tour of the exhibition and discover the stories behind the items on display. GUIDED WALK Trees, Woodlands and Forests, Highfields Thursday 21 February & Thursday 21 March, 2pm Meet outside Box Office. Free, but booking recommended. Suitable for ages 16+ Led by Steve Clarke, Highfields Park Ranger. The walk will go ahead whatever the weather!
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MRI Collections Project
Shining a light on the slide
Work has started on our exciting Wellcome Trust funded project, Development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at the University of Nottingham, announced in our previous newsletter. The project will catalogue, preserve and selectively digitise the papers of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Sir Peter Mansfield and two other scientists involved in the development of MRI at Nottingham, Professor Raymond Andrew and Professor Brian Worthington, together with associated records of the British Radiofrequency Spectroscopy Group. The project will also open up the collections for teaching and research to tell the story of the pioneering work on MRI undertaken in Nottingham. One of the main strands of the project is the digitisation of around 18,000 35mm slides, present across all the collections. These slides include images of MRI scans of the human body, graphs of experimental results, pictures of MRI equipment, and photographs of individuals.
digitisation process
chosen to produce high quality images at a much faster rate, and a bespoke camera rig was commissioned. This system, created by Icam Archive Systems Ltd, operates on a track, at one end of which is the mounted DSLR camera and at the other, a holder to secure the slide in position. The camera can be moved along the track and secured in order to set the optimum focus distance, and its height above the track can also be adjusted to fine-tune the framing of the image. Positioned behind the slide-holder is a daylight balanced cool LED light-source which illuminates the transparency film and controls the accuracy of the colours in the images created. When a slide is inserted into the holder the camera exposure is automatically triggered, allowing the photographer to capture the image without touching or moving the camera.
The camera is also tethered to a PC, allowing the photographer to review and process the images straight away. While the light-source and camera settings give a consistent capture, where detail has Viewing the original slides been lost in either the is a time-consuming original camera exposure process, requiring the or in the ageing process of use of a lightbox or slide the film material, we can projector, neither of which An example of original slide storage and labelling in hanging edit and restore details is ideal for processing plastic pockets where possible. The images such a large quantity are then produced as a TIFF of slides. It was decided, file, which serves as the master preservation file, and as a instead, to produce digital images of all the slides in the JPEG file, which intelligently reduces file size and serves as early stages of the project, which could then be accessed the access file for researchers. easily by all project team members on any computer. This is particularly useful because, given the specialist nature of many of the images, Manuscripts and Special Collections will be relying on expert academic help to identify the images and determine their importance. We are delighted that this help will be provided primarily by Professor Peter Morris, one of Peter Mansfield’s PhD students and Director of the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre from 1994 to 2016. Before digitising each slide, various details about it are recorded, such as any text written on its border, what type of container it is in, and its location within that container (the slide holders include hanging plastic pockets, individual slide boxes, and even a cigar box). Each slide is also given a temporary number for processing purposes. Slides are commonly digitised using flatbed scanners in custom-made trays; however, to produce high resolution scans this way is a slow process. Therefore, a Nikon D810 full-frame DSLR camera and Zeiss 100mm macro lens was
After digitisation, each image will be viewed and appraised, and a decision made on whether to retain it permanently for the archive collections. If many copies of the same image are found, we would not generally keep them all. Finally, the retained slides will be repackaged into polypropylene slide storage sheets for long-term preservation, and they will be assigned permanent catalogue numbers. The catalogue descriptions of the slides will appear in our online catalogue, along with the descriptions of the research notes, publications, patents, lecture notes and personal papers also present in the collections. We will be reporting on the cataloguing and the interesting material we are finding, in future issues of Discover and in our blog at blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscripts
Professor Peter Morris looking at items from the Peter Mansfield Collection on a visit to Manuscripts and Special Collections
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Contact details Manuscripts and Special Collections The University of Nottingham King’s Meadow Campus Lenton Lane Nottingham NG7 2NR mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk +44 (0)115 951 4565 nottingham.ac.uk/ manuscriptsandspecialcollections
@ mssUniNott
Parchment, Paper and Pixels Highlights from Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham
Parchment, Paper and Pixels provides a taster of the wonderful collections held by Manuscripts and Special Collections. This iBook introduces you to a selection of archives, maps, photographs, posters and music covering the globe from Iceland to China by way of Nottingham and the Soviet Union. Download for free at: Designed by UoN Design
nottingham.ac.uk/open/ebooksandibooks.aspx