Gasped out loud in the reading room the other day, finding the school reports of CUL Librarian Francis Jenkinson (1853-1923). His report aged 14 (1868) noted he 'should not acquire a habit of idleness now which he will find it hard to master hereafter'. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Add. 7671/III/F/12.

Due to an unplanned maintenance issue which requires further assessment, the University Library will not be open to readers today (16th January). You can check our Service Update page: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/using-librar...

The old Cambridge University Library. @theul.bsky.social #AlphabetChallenge #WeekBforBooks 📷 #photography

Cambridge University Librarian Francis Jenkinson (right) in his garden on Chaucer Road in June 1915. In the pot is an ‘Olearia insignis’ (a shrub native to New Zealand now known more commonly as ‘Pachystegia insignis’ or the Marlborough Rock Daisy). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social MS Add. 7671/III/F65.

Our precious #Shakespeare first folio of 1623 recently underwent some conservation treatment. Read all about it in our latest blog: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=31272

Painter John Singer Sargent was born on this day in 1856. In 1915 he painted this portrait of University Librarian Francis Jenkinson, to mark the 25th year of his librarianship. It hangs outside the present Librarian's office @theul.bsky.social.

Call now open for Visiting Fellowships in our Natural History Humanities programme! Building long-term collaborations with early career researchers on Cambridge GLAM collections. @camunivmuseums.bsky.social @theul.bsky.social @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

Amazing collections, lovely people. Come and spend a year doing research @theul.bsky.social @theulspeccoll.bsky.social

The Adoration of the Magi, for #Epiphany. From a book of hours long thought to have been created in the early sixteenth century but now realised as the work of Victorian miniaturist Caleb Wing (d. 1875). Now CUL MS Add. 4126.

Attention current University of Cambridge students! Entries are welcome for this year's Rose Book Collecting Prize until 30 January. Your collection doesn't need to be large or valuable; just interesting.

Write an essay to win £500 📝 Just over a week to go to enter your essay proposals to the Gordon Duff Prize. This opportunity is open to all University of Cambridge members. Deadline for proposals: 19 December 2025 Find out more: https://loom.ly/xZZOdOc

Over 80 broadsides & slip-songs were recently added to our online catalogue by our volunteer Sofia. She talks about some of her favourites in our latest blog: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=31210

Finally made it to Curious Cures at @theulspeccoll.bsky.social and what a delight to see so many plain looking text manuscripts alongside the herbals and zodiac men

Medieval spider! 🕷️ From Meydenbach’s ‘Ortus Sanitatis’ (Garden of health), a natural history encyclopedia, printed at Mainz in 1491. Came to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social in 1715. Inc.3.A.1.8[37].

Our latest blog highlights a workshop which took place in the summer, on 'AI and Nahuatl Heritage Material: Challenges and Opportunities'. Read more about it: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=31178

This is so fun! A. F. Scholfield (presumably on the right) became University Librarian @theul.bsky.social in 1923...

Write an essay to win £500 📝 The Gordon Duff Prize is now accepting proposals on the science of books and manuscripts and the arts relating to them. Find out more and how to enter: https://loom.ly/xZZOdOc

#OnThisDay in 1600, Charles I was born. This highly symbolic image of Charles holding the martyr’s crown of thorns is the frontispiece to the Eikon Basilike (The Royal Portrait). Published soon after his execution in 1649, it claimed to be Charles's spiritual autobiography. London: 1649 – CCD.8.9

Excellent new guest blog post from @jwscolley.bsky.social on "A Lost Ballad Found: Rediscovering a Jephthah Ballad in the Norton Collection". Read all about it here: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=31034

A ghoulish end to Adam Moore’s ‘Bread for the poor: and advancement of the English nation promised by enclosure’ (London, 1653). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Syn.7.60.216(8). #mementomori

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. John McCrae, In Flanders' Field. Image: Fuch's herbal (Sel.2.81) #ArmisticeDay #RemembranceDay

Excellent afternoon with second-year History students at @theul.bsky.social today to look at sources for their ‘Women in Cambridge c.1900-1950’ Research Project. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social

One of our favourite student seminars of the year, looking at Venetian Sessa imprints with cats!

A week to go until the Sandars Lectures 2025 📚 Join us in celebrating archival collections in Cambridge and beyond, on 11 & 12 November 2025, 5-6pm. Online spaces still available. Book your free tickets: https://loom.ly/Du7jSUs

Labels for medicine bottles? Found in a copy of William Salmon’s ‘Botanologia: the English herbal’ (London, 1710) (along with several pressed botanical specimens). CCA.46.31 @theUL.bsky.social, formerly at the Anatomy School, Cambridge, part of the Suffolk General Hospital collection.

Skeletons for #Halloween, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). About the least rare rare book in existence (we have 5 copies) but this one hand-coloured and part of a donation made in 1574 by Elizabeth I's Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker. CUL Inc.0.A.7.2[888].

Pretty stonking illumination in this copy of Antonio Gazio’s ‘De conservatione sanitatis’ (Venice, 1491), executed in Padua for the Sforza family soon after publication. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Inc.2.B.3.45[1506].

In the reading room today: super 1903 book if activities for girls in which Chapter 1 is building things with a hammer and a saw. There's also making fireworks using the metal from your stays. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social 1903.7. 554

Celebrating archival collections in Cambridge and beyond, join us for the 2025 Sandars Lecture Series by Joan Winterkorn MBE. 11 & 12 November, 5-6pm. 🎟️ Book your free tickets: https://loom.ly/Du7jSUs

Good sleeve on this early manicule. In a commentary on Aristotle, Porphyrius & Boethius, printed at #Venice in 1496. At @theulspeccoll.bsky.social since 1664, part of the vast collection of Richard Holdsworth, Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge. CUL Inc.3.B.3.138[1836].

Excited to find drawings of moths by FW Frohawk (1861-1946) in the archive of biologist William Bateson @theul.bsky.social. They’re catalogued as ‘27 drawings of Milan Leps’, but think this should be ‘Melan[istic] Leps’? Do they look right for showing melanism, #TeamMoth? MS Add. 8634/J.3 #EntHist

St Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, holding onto a chunky tome (complete with metal bosses) for dear life. In a copy of his works, printed at #Venice in 1471 by Wendelin of Speyer, one of a pair of German brothers. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Inc.2.B.3.1b[1331].

Everyone loves a ‘Bad Lad’. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social 1930.7.2076.

Some very pointy manicules in this copy of the works of Juvenal, printed at #Venice by Antonius de Strata, de Cremona, in 1486. Love the little red sleeves! Given to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social in 1934 by Stephen Gaselee. CUL Inc.3.B.3.47b[3983].

In the reading room today: the absolutely wonderful Light Car magazine from 1934. #TrafficLight #Aeroplane #GuildfordBypass @theulspeccoll.bsky.social L429:8.b.20

Archbishop Laud was born #OTD in 1573. This copy of Lorenzo Traversagni’s ‘Margarita Eloquentiæ’ (St Albans, 1480), was almost certainly in his personal library& went to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk after his death. It was ejected as a duplicate in 1862 & is now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Inc.5.J.4.1[3632].

Some great side-eye from this French Angel spotted yesterday in a copy of the ‘Via recta et antiqua’ of Jonas, the ninth-century Bishop of Orléans. Printed at Douai in 1645 and now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social U*.8.149(G).

Join us for this free research talk at Cambridge University Library!

LOVE the little face in the border here, not to mention the stonking great golden initial. In Cicero’s Epistolæ ad Familiares printed ON VELLUM at #Venice by the great Nicolaus Jenson in 1471. Came to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social in 1715 from the library of John Moore, Bishop of Ely. Inc.3.B.3.2[1347]

A bookish bookplate by wood engraver Reynolds Stone (1909-79), for the Francis Holland School in Sloane Square. Collected by Will Carter (of the Rampant Lions Press) and now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social MS Add. 9830/A/5.

A lengthy hand-painted initial at the beginning of the book of Genesis. From a Bible printed at #Venice by Franz Renner (originally from the German city of Heilbronn) in 1483. Given to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social by John Charrington in 1916. CUL Inc.5.B.3.6d[1395.1].

A great visit this morning from delegates at the 'Craft, Texture, & Aesthetics of Letter Forms' conference, to visit our Historical Printing Room & see a range of materials from our collection, including John Baskerville specimens, the Kelmscott Chaucer, & woodblocks & designs by Reynolds Stone!

Some final flowers this Sunday morning. From Humbert Belhomme’s ‘Historia’ of the Abbaye de Moyenmoutier (printed at Paris in 1724) in the Vosges département of eastern France. It was founded in 671, and flourished in the 18thC until its suppression in 1790. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social VI.11.50.

Armorial bookplate of Thomas Bramston (c. 1690-1765) of Skreens, near Maldon (Essex). Student at Pembroke College Cambridge, lawyer & Tory MP for Maldon (1727-34) & Essex (1734-47). In James Ussher’s ‘Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates’ (Dublin, 1639). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Hib.7.63.33.

LOVE this bookplate (1920s?) for Jan Van Eck. In an equally interesting book (‘Le catholicon de la Basse Germanie’), printed at ‘Cologne’ in 1731 by ‘Pierre Marteau’ - a fictitious imprint used in Northern Europe when printers wanted to evade identification. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social CCD.81.267.

A fancy gilt centrepiece on the binding of a copy of Thomas Stafford’s ‘Pacata Hibernia: Ireland appeased and reduced; Or, an historie of the late vvarres of Ireland’ (London, 1633). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Hib.3.63.1.

Francis Jenkinson, University Librarian at Cambridge between 1889 and 1923, was born on this day in 1853. Here he seems to have found time away from his books & entomological specimens to have fun with a well-behaved dog. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Portraits.c.71.

Gorgeous endpapers, spotted yesterday in a religious work printed in the Bavarian town of Pappenheim in 1783-86. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Acton.d.1.399-401.

A majestically colourful cockerel. From a picture book ABC for children, printed in the Swiss city of Bern in 1860. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Ud.9.460.

Bookplate of French pianist Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), who played in a trio with Jacques Thibaud (violin) & Pablo Casals (cello). In 1919 he founded the École Normale de Musique. In Diderot’s ‘Mémoires sur différens sujets de mathématiques’ (Paris, 1748). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Leigh.d.9.11.