The College Record 2022

Reports and College Activities
drew on Dr Douglas Bridgewater’s donation of Cumberland and Westmorland books.
In collaboration with the Queen’s Translation Exchange and the School’s Liaison
and Outreach Officer, the exhibition included a translation competition for partner
schools in the region. Earlier in the year, following a series of ‘show and tells’ and
seminars in the Library for Dr Jennifer Edwards’s Renaissance Literature course,
students Katie Bowen, Austin Haynes, Sarah Hutchence, Niamh Ward, and Megan
Williams curated a fascinating display in the New Library on early modern disease.
Students on Dr Jessica Stacey’s French course were able to look at our copy of one
of Moliere’s plays, which was owned, and possibly annotated, by Anne of Austria.
These exhibitions, and the collections in general, have sparked further discussion.
For example, as Trinity Term ended, we were able to support Dr Annalisa Nicholson’s
Huguenot Workshop with an extended ‘hands on’ session with French protestant
texts, including one volume with rare early woodcuts of Florida. Earlier in the year,
the Library hosted an online seminar examining textile conservations, looking at
the work undertaken on our important collection of Henry VIII manuscript bindings.
The Library and Dr Gabriele Rota, produced a series short videos for the Centre for
Manuscript and Textual Studies’s YouTube channel exploring the Library, including
an interview with history fellow, Dr Conor O’Brien on medieval dining practices
and Professor Richard Parkinson and Dr Christopher Hollings exploring Egyptian
mathematics in the Peet Library. The latter library also proved popular with a visit in
March by the nearby New College School’s Year 3 as part of their ‘Greats’ study of
Egyptian Civilisation; the budding Egyptologists, who were treated to an introduction
by Professor Richard Parkinson, were also very taken by the set of globes and orrery
in the Upper Library. The Library also continues to be a popular calling point for
young people on the school’s outreach programme (as well as for Old Members).
Expanding access to the collections for scholars, and indeed anyone with an interest
in them, has continued thanks to donations from Old Members which support the
conservation, expert imaging, and digital ‘ingest’ skills needed to digitise books
and manuscripts. Through our collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries, you can
now view a growing number of the College’s treasures online along with important
scholarly works, including Thomas Hardy’s Winter Words (MS 420) and Thomas
Crosfield’s (1602-1663) diary (MS 390), which is full of fascinating insights into early
modern life in College and beyond. We hope that this body of works will expand
significantly over the coming years. The Library has also ‘gone viral’ (in a good way)
several times this year, thanks to Assistant Librarian Sarah Arkle’s savvy use of
social media.
Finally, I am pleased to report that the the important role that Tessa Shaw has played
for many years in the Library was recognised in her title of Deputy Librarian shortly
before she retired at the end of the year.
42 The Queen’s College | College Record 2022