Category: Archives and Special Collections

The Lendrum Internship in Book Conservation

By Freya Chambers

Part 1: My First Book Conservation Projects

Last May, I started the Lendrum Internship in Book Conservation at Palace Green Library. The internship lasts for one year and gives the intern the opportunity to explore the world of rare books conservation through undertaking supervised practical projects to conserve books from PGL’s vast special collections library.

It was my first in depth taste of book conservation after completing my degree in Objects Conservation at Cardiff University and working as a student archive conservation intern at Glamorgan Archives.

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From coffee and cake to a published volume – a successful collaborative project!

A post by Research Engagement and Collections Development Archivist Dr Jonathan Bush

One of most rewarding aspects of working in the Archives and Special Collections team of ULC is the opportunity to build close working relationships with a diverse range of researchers, including academics, students, and family historians. These interactions often begin as conversations, where we offer specialist advice about our collections and guide researchers to relevant material in the catalogue. Occasionally, however, these exchanges can evolve into more significant collaborations.

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Item of the month: A Peek into the Mysterious World of 16th Century Witchcraft

A post by Archives & Special Collections Apprentice, Charlie Lough

Amongst the vast Durham Probate Records (DPR) collection is a modest document wrapper from the 16th century. However, upon closer inspection, this unassuming item hints at a world where witchcraft and sorcery were very real fears.

Let’s travel back to 1592, to the village of Chatton in Northumberland, where a man named Steven Revlye died. After his death, an inventory of his belongings was created. But what is really fascinating is not what Steven owned, but what was used to wrap up this inventory; a piece of paper that had served as a public notice. The document in question had the remains of a public announcement about “sorc[ery]” and “incha[ntment],” words that would send shivers down the spines of any 16th century villager. During this time, the word “witchcraft” was used to describe a wide range of practices, some of which were purely imaginary. But whether real or not, those accused of such practices often faced severe consequences.

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Item of the month: Satires, censors, and pseudonyms

Les galanteries et les debauches de l’empereur Neron…Par Petrone (Bamburgh I.5.32)

A post by Collections Assistant Caroline Ball, in Cologne

On the title-page of this book, the imprint tells us that it was published in 1694, in Cologne, in the workshop of the printer Pierre Marteau. Sounds plausible? Certainly, until we discover that Pierre Marteau – “Peter the Hammer” – never actually existed.

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Item of the month: Peter Apian’s Cosmographia

A post by Collections Coordinator Hannah Cartwright

Our item of this monthis Peter Apian’s Cosmographia. Initially published in 1524, later editions of Cosmographia expanded and edited by Gemma Frisius became hugely successful. Our 1584 edition is one of these later editions. Over 40 editions of Cosmographia were published in under a century, and it was translated from Latin into 4 different languages.

So, what made Cosmographia a 16th century bestseller?

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Lendrum Graduate Internship in Book Conservation

A post by Susan Hull

In 2021 I began the Lendrum graduate internship in Book Conservation at Durham University. I applied for this post whilst completing an MA in Conservation of Fine Art with a paper specialism at Northumbria University, having had previous voluntary experience in object conservation based in museums. This internship was essentially my first taste of book conservation. For the next two years I worked alongside the conservation team at Palace Green Library, home of the Durham University Archive and Special Collections. The team comprised of book, paper and collections conservation specialists, all of whom were generous in sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm.

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Item of the month: Letter from Sarah Child-Villiers, Countess of Jersey, to Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey – 8th January 1827

A post by Collections Assistant Jennifer Leach

This letter is one of 152 letters held in our collections written from the Countess of Jersey to Earl Grey. In 1827 Earl Grey was a prominent member of the Whig party but had just resigned his leadership to Lord Lansdowne, partly due to how at odds he was with the Prince Regent. However, in just three years he would become Prime Minister. The Countess was an influential member of the London social elite as she was not only a member of the aristocracy and extremely wealthy independently of her husband but also a patron of Almack’s, the most exclusive social club in London.

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Team Work Makes the Dream Work: My Experience at Durham University

The image is a photograph of Palace Green Library, a historic stone building, under a clear blue sky and in front of the green lawn of Palace Green. Vans and a visitor are passing in front of the building, showing the continued liveliness of the historic space.

By Amber Russell

Becoming a book conservator isn’t easy. Finding a program that will teach you the necessary skills and techniques is difficult enough, then you have to find a job. That’s normally when a post graduate work placement comes into play. Work placement is like a mini-internship, you will generally end up emailing every conservation lab, library, university, or museum you know and ask them, in a politely begging tone, to let you come and do volunteer work with them for a handful of weeks. If you’re very lucky and find someone kind enough to say yes then you get the opportunity to walk into a conservation lab as a volunteer conservator complete with responsibilities and goals and a few projects on your desk, and you do your very best not to blow it. Like I said: not easy. But if you’re very, very lucky you get to work in one of the most incredible settings in the world, with a collection people only dream of, and with a amazing team of not just conservators, but archivists, librarians, and the various staff that keep a collection available to the public. It just so happens, I am very, very lucky, because I was able to spend my work placement at Durham University.

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Item of the Month: Photograph Album from the White Russian Camp in Kellerberg

The Kellerberg (also spelled Kellerburg) and Feffernitz Camps in Austria housed 10,000 displaced persons between them in the late 1940s. The Camp was located near the town of Kellerberg in the Drava River valley, northwest of Villach, Austria. Largely new barracks, the camp consisted of, at minimum, beds and basic structures, although it was built up to include a Church, Cemetery, Theatre Hall, and barracks for living quarters as more persons arrived. The camp was multinational, Slovenes were the largest group followed by persons from the Baltic countries and other Eastern and Southeastern countries of Europe. While families had their own barracks for privacy, single men and women had separate barracks, one for women and one for men.

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Item of the month: An Account of the loss of HMS Athenienne in October 1806

Athenienne, a 64 gun third-rate ship of the line saw service during the War of the Second Coalition in the French Revolutionary Wars. She also supplied the British fleet following the Battle of Trafalgar. She sank in 1806 with the loss of over 300 lives. GRE A2229 details an account of the loss of the ship on 20 October when it ran aground on a submerged reef in the channel between Sardinia, Sicily and Africa.

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