Image 1. Landscape image from the Portolan Chart LUL MS.F.4.17
Special Collections & Archives (SC&A) cares for and makes available in perpetuity the unique and distinctive collections of the University of Liverpool. Here, the team updates us on the recent work they have been doing to enhance the collections and the resources available remotely.
With help from our colleagues at Liverpool University Press (LUP), one of our lockdown projects has been to make our four fully digitised medieval manuscripts available to view on the LUP Digital Collaboration Hub.
These four manuscripts – an English literary text, a highly decorated Book of Hours, a service book and a navigational chart – demonstrate a diversity of forms and features of interest to students of manuscript studies and medieval culture. When seen in the context of the collections from which they derive, they also shine a spotlight on the cultural and educational life of Liverpool from the late 19th century onwards. Our hope is that this resource might prove particularly useful during this period in which we are unable to offer in-person visits.
We are also thrilled that a collection from the University Archives has been chosen to be a part of Wiley’s new digital archive collection representing the history of science from the 1830s to 1970s. The digitised papers of Sir Oliver Lodge (1851-1940), a Professor of Physics at the University of Liverpool and a leading scientist of his age, will be freely available for University of Liverpool users to view online very soon.
We are always working to add to collections and to make what we have at SC&A more visible. We have recently welcomed a number of new donations that enhance our existing collections, such as student ephemera from University alumni, and shipping memorabilia that complements the Cunard archive. Alongside these new accessions we have been upgrading our existing catalogues to make them more accessible online. We love sharing interesting finds and newly acquired items via Twitter and our recently revamped blog.
Prior to lockdown we launched our new exhibition “Banned, Binned, Bombed: Selection and Survival in Special Collections and Archives” in the ground floor Grove Wing exhibition space. We didn’t want our visitors to miss out, so we adapted this exhibition into an online format using the online exhibit tool Omeka. View the online exhibition and discover some of the (sometimes surprising) reasons material has found its way into Special Collections and Archives.
Omeka has also been used to celebrate SC&A’s recent acquisition of the Library of Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, with the creation of a digital exhibition which showcases key items from the collection. The exhibition also incorporates materials from the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, based at Texas A&M University, marking the first of many collaborations with special collections repositories around the world that are part of the newly-formed Science Fiction Collections Libraries Consortium.
Image 2. Items from the Banned, Binned, Bombed: Selection and Survival in Special Collections and Archives exhibition
We have continued to support and deliver academic teaching using SC&A materials, and staff have adapted in order to deliver pedagogical content via virtual access. Two English MA modules - ‘Science Fiction and/as the Archive’ and ‘Genre Definitions’ – have incorporated digitised images of printed books, magazines and archival documents into online teaching. In addition, classes have also included handling demonstrations using tablets and a newly-acquired mounted stand that allows for hands-free and immersive pedagogy; these resources will also be used for virtual consultations for MA students who wish to look at SC&A materials for their theses.
We have been working with our academic colleagues to suggest ways of incorporating additional digital content into sessions both in this and next semester, and are happy to develop content for additional classes. We can also offer virtual versions of our general introduction to using the service, which help students to understand the interest and importance of primary sources to their studies.
SC&A offers an enquiry service based on our collections and we are happy to hear from anyone who has a question about the service or the collections. During lockdown, many people took the opportunity to research their family history, so we received many interesting enquiries from families of former students to explore on our reopening. Once SC&A staff regained access to the collections in Mid-July we worked hard to answer all of the outstanding enquiries we received. At the moment, our reprographics service (whereby we are able to copy up to 100 pages of SC&A material of a suitable size and condition) is very popular, as it allows researchers to view material as digital files without an in-person visit.
We look forward to welcoming you all back in person. In the meantime you can find up to date information about our service on our website, including how to consult our archive and printed book catalogues and how to contact us via email.
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