Topic description and stories

A Stray Sumerian Tablet: Unravelling the story behind Cambridge University Library’s oldest written object

13 Mar 2018

The story surrounding the oldest written document at one of the world’s great research libraries has been unravelled in a new film.

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“Our weapon is public opinion”

01 Feb 2018

One of the largest surviving collections of suffrage posters from the early twentieth century are housed in Cambridge University Library’s famous...

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University celebrates LGBT+ History Month

01 Feb 2018

We are celebrating LGBT+ History Month throughout February with a pop-up University Library exhibition and numerous student-led events.

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Image from Newton’s own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica

Sir Isaac Newton’s Cambridge papers added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register

01 Dec 2017

The Cambridge papers of Sir Isaac Newton, including early drafts and Newton’s annotated copies of Principia Mathematica – a work that changed the...

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A Treatise on Diamonds and Precious Stones, 1813, by John Mawe

Going underground: Cambridge digs into the history of geology with landmark exhibition

24 Nov 2017

A box full of diamonds, volcanic rock from Mount Vesuvius, and the geology guide that Darwin packed for his epic voyage on the Beagle will go on...

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The bodies of two Protestants, Martin Bucer and Peter Phagius, are burnt in Cambridge's market place, 1557

The Reformation is remembered

27 Oct 2017

The Reformation is famously traced to an event that took place in Germany 500 years ago and reverberated across Europe. An online exhibition paints a...

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This down-to-earth, glazed terracotta figurine of the Virgin could act as the focus of family prayers in a modest home

Animating objects: what material culture can tell us about domestic devotions

24 Oct 2017

Rustic figurines of a resigned-looking Virgin clutching her child may have no obvious literary or artistic merit to us today. But understanding what...

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Step inside the mind of the young Stephen Hawking as his PhD thesis goes online for first time

23 Oct 2017

Stephen Hawking’s PhD thesis, ‘ Properties of expanding universes’ , has been made freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world, after being...

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College Breweries: when drinking ale at University was safer than sipping tap water

22 Aug 2017

From a College brewery to 3D photography, there’s lots to discover behind the scenes in Cambridge libraries in Open Cambridge 2017

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World’s oldest, illustrated Sanskrit manuscript launches India Unboxed film series

12 Jun 2017

What connects a head-hunter’s trophy, a meteorite, Hercules, a painting of a Hindu temple, an ornate desk, a brass instrument, a tin of tea (unopened...

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Discarded History exhibition lifts the lid on 1,000 years of medieval history

27 Apr 2017

Treasures from the world’s largest and most important collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts – chronicling 1,000 years of history in Old Cairo –...

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Work begins on new off-site storage facility for Cambridge libraries

31 Mar 2017

When you’re a Legal Deposit library holding more than eight million books and manuscripts, one million maps, and have been entitled to a copy of...

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