Had a great time at St Ives Library yesterday doing my women's suffrage talk. Big turnout - we had 46 people there. Here's a postcard of Girton College in the 1900s. Love the ladies in hats!

Great to see Cambridgeshire Libraries on the shortlist for the Libraries Connected Awards for Information and Digital again this year. This time was for our Everyspace Project. Read more about it and see the rest of the nominees at www.librariesconnected.org.uk/news/shortli...

Just been poking around on the Historic England site - found a report about one of the nuclear bunkers in Cambridge. This one is off Brooklands Avenue and was designed to be the regional seat of government. Got to love a good bunker! historicengland.org.uk/research/res...

Did you know you have access to British Newspaper Archive at Cambridgeshire Libraries? It's got the Cambridge Evening News for 1969 to 1999 and you can use it for all kinds of things. You can even find a picture I drew of a vampire when I was 6!

Getting some sources ready for our Women's History Wikipedia Edit-a-thon next month. It'll be on Saturday 14th March and we'll be adding to or creating Wikipedia entries for women from Cambridgeshire. You can find out more or book a place at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/womens-his...

Had a good time showing the Anglia Ruskin University Film students around the Collection today - here's the projection room of the Regal cinema in the 1940s to celebrate.

E. M. Barraud worked with the Land Army near Little Eversden in Cambridgeshire. We've got a copy of her book "Set my hand upon the plough" here in the Cambridgeshire Collection.

For LGBTQ+ History Month, Cambridge Central Library will be hosting the BFI on Saturday 28th February 2-3:30pm - come along to their screening and mini zine workshop. You can book your ticket on Eventbrite at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/black-quee...

It's Arbury Day today - celebrating the 60th birthday of Arbury Court library. We're here till 2pm!

Do you remember when Dale's Brewery still had the cup on top? Here it is in the 1960s. The brewery was founded by Frederick Dale at the British Queen pub on Histon Road in 1898 and moved into the specially built brewery in 1902.

Back to work, and it's #SaturdayLibrarian time again. I've managed to track down which shelf I put our General Strike news sheets again, so here's one for Saturday. These were being put out twice a day during the strike.

Enjoyed a day trip to Bedford today to see the Higgins Museum, but also had to pop into Bedford Central Library on my way past. Excellent local studies library - I was impressed.

Well talk went well and I enjoyed the chance to look round Ely market. Glad to see the pride flag flying. Off for a week annual leave now.

In Ely bright and early for the Friends of Ely AGM. They're going to be hearing about the history of Cambridgeshire Libraries.

Was telling my manager about the 1926 General Strike today, so here's a picket line outside the City Arms pub in Sturton Street in Cambridge. Cambridge University students were used as strike breakers across the country, working on the Tube in London, driving trains etc.

Couple of years ago now, but I greatly enjoyed my visit to the combined library and roman museum at Alcester back in 2024. Great local studies section - even had a microfilm machine. My university friends who all studied archaeology thought the museum well worth a look.

We're looking to capture experiences of what it means to be queer in the UK today! To do that we're collecting day diaries for 12th February. It doesn't matter what you get up to, or how you record it, we'd love to have it!🧵 (1/4) #LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took at university. Mass, Heat and Momentum Transport Process Design and Analysis Mixing and Multiphase Systems Chemical and Biochemical Processes Environmental Engineering and Life Cycle Analysis Have I actually used any of this lot? Not really

Still cracking on with the library history talk. Here's Burwell Library in 2001 and Burwell Library now - what a glow up! Burwell actually had their own individual parish library service right up until 1964.

Writing a talk about the history of the Cambridgeshire library service - turned into a bit of a history of local government in Cambridgeshire but ah well! Here's the old Cambridgeshire County Library HQ in the grounds at Shire Hall in Cambridge in the 1960s.

There's now over 1,500 of you who have signed up to see what I put out here - thank you very much everybody! Hopefully some of it is interesting or useful in some way.

Today's random snap is the tactile map of Cambridge by Great St Mary's Church. It's all in bronze and you can see where people's hands have polished it.

Great to see a full page and a half about Cambridgeshire Archives in the Cambridge Independent this week. You're famous @alanakeroyd.bsky.social!

An interesting idea, but only saving 20 mins on the Cambridge to Huntingdon bit and costing twice as much as the bus fare cap seems an interesting choice... Not one I think I'll be taking that often.

It's only a week until Arbury Court Library's 60th birthday! Here's a poster from when it opened. We've got plans for a bit of a shindig in February half term - keep an eye on our Eventbrite for more details later www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/cambridges...

Pongs in here rather today - sorting through some negs with vingear syndrome. Sometimes acetate film degrades and forms acetic acid in damp conditions. When it gets really bad, it starts to look like this

Our negative listing volunteers found this excellent picture today - this is Miss Bishop, dressed as Cantabridgia. No idea why, but it's a nice costume.

Congrats to my colleagues over at Cambridgeshire Archives. They've just been re-accredited by National Archives for another 3 years. Great to see! www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/news/cambrid...

The monthly #SaturdayLibrarian shift is round again, and it's newspapers again. Here's Waresley Church in 1987, the steeple having fallen down in high wind.

The amount of different designs of these there are - the hours of time I've spent removing them from library holdings. Brass paperclips only please!

Just started my next @pharostutors.bsky.social course on apprenticeships. Not really a source I've used before, so looking forward to learning more.

Still pretty cold in Cambridge today but it's not reached 1963 levels yet. Not sure we'll be skating on the Cam this year! Here's what it looked like then.

Finally got round to watching Wake Up Dead Man yesterday - really enjoyed it, even if it was a slightly odd mash of UK and USA.

Well that's me done till after Christmas. Cambridge Central Library will be back open on Saturday 27th December at 10am, and the Cambridgeshire Collection will be staffed from Monday 29th December at 9:30am.

Bit quiet at work at the mo, so great time to check out our eMagazines and eNewspapers on Pressreader. You can even brush up on your foreign languages - I'm reading a DIY magazine in German at the mo. www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/li...

It's been graverobbers, bodysnatchers and resurrection men all morning, something people were very concerned about in the 1820s and 1830s. Here's a cartoon about it in our collection.

Did enjoy the game at the Christmas party at work - what were we trying to make from library books?

It's the monthly #SaturdayLibrarian shift again today - last one of 2025! The Cambridgeshire Collection team are here till 5pm if you have a local history urge once you've finished the Christmas shopping.

Spent the morning filing in a grant application form. Here's what we want - a cheque! This is from Foster's Bank. The bank was originally in Trinity Street, where Jigsaw is now. Here's a picture from the 1890s.

Certainly starting to feel a bit like Christmas round here - just had someone drop off some mince pies. Here's Heffer's bookshop celebrating Christmas in the 1960s.

Had a new booklet in about the Cambridge Union Society today. However, did you know that it was one of the few buildings in the city centre to get bombed in WW2? You can still see shrapnel damage on Whewell's Court by the junction of Jesus Lane.

Off to the Museum of Technology tonight - giving a talk to the Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Group on Cambridgeshire Inventions. Think I'll end up teaching my grannie to suck eggs to be honest, but hopefully they enjoy themselves anyway! More deets at www.museumoftechnology.com/ciag

They've just updated the Google aerial map of Cambridge. May Balls visible around the place and Midsummer Fair is there too. I'm guessing the picture was taken on Wednesday 24th June.

Off to Huntingdon tomorrow to do a talk on Winter in the Fens. You can find out more at www.library.live/calendar/eng... Looking forward to trying out the new(ish) T1 bus route - was very impressed with the T5 route to Soham earlier this year.

Today's theme is people in hats. All of these are from our Ramsey and Muspratt collection and were taken in 1935 here in Cambridge.

Finishing off writing my talk on theatres and performing arts centres in Cambridgeshire with a bit on the Priory Centre in St Neots. Here's a picture of it in February this year before the works started.

It's St Andrew's Day today. We've got 22 churches in Cambridgeshire dedicated to St Andrew - no idea why so many! It also happens to be my birthday, so I usually use it as an excuse to eat Scottish tablet.

It's Black Friday today, so here's a photo of a coal merchant's waggon from the 1910s. It's William Benstead of Swaffham Prior with his son Clifford in Swaffham Prior. I don't know the name of the horse I'm afraid.

One of my highways colleagues has just come in with a folder of bits and bobs to donate, including lots of useful photographs of bridges. Here's Carter Bridge being built in 1989 between the hours of 1 and 6 in the morning on Sundays. It was the UK longest cycle and pedestrian bridge when it opened.

Been really enjoying the @queerhcn.org symposium online today - what a range of things people have been up to looking at LGBTQ+ history across museums and heritage #QHCN2025