A Home for the Girton Collections

Designed by leading architects Allies and Morrison, the £2.5 million Duke Building provides a permanent home for the Girton College Archive collection, recognised as the most important resource in Britain on women’s access to higher education. It includes the institutional records of Girton as a pioneering college and the personal papers of many of its members and supporters who were connected with the college and the early campaign for female education.

An extension to the existing library, the building also houses specialist book collections and a new reading room for those working on the archive and special collections. The facility includes climate-controlled storage and conservation areas. There is a spacious IT resources area and a remodelled library entrance with disabled access.

The Duke Building was funded by the support of Girtonians and friends of the college, including a major gift from Alison Duke, the Senior Fellow.

The layout of the building has created an addition to the College’s open spaces in Campbell Court, named after benefactors Juliet Campbell (Mistress of Girton 1993-98) and her late husband Alec. The Littler Reading Room is named after Sir Geoffrey and Lady Littler. Shirley Littler is an Old Girtonian and has had a distinguished career in the senior civil service.

The 15 specialist collections of books housed in the library include the private libraries of Mary Somerville and Barbara Bodichon. The internationally-renowned Blackburn Collection covers 19th-century debates on women’s legal, social and labour rights and their struggle for the right to vote.

“Libraries are pivotal to our work as a university,” said Professor Richard in her opening speech. “They allow the transmission of knowledge between generations, between disciplines and between readers from all over the world. In this library at Girton mathematicians and musicians, physicists and philosophers at every level will learn next to each other, and from each other, and scholarship and learning will be the better for it.”

Among those present at the opening was Baroness Hale, Britain’s first female Law Lord and Girton’s recently appointed College Visitor, who succeeded the Queen Mother in the role.