Tag Archives: Accessing collections

Newflash: Melville melodrama lives!

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Just when you thought you’d reached the end of the weird and wonderful activities with which Special Collections gets involved, think again!

We are delighted to announce an upcoming read-through of a Melville melodrama, courteousy of the University’s Melodrama Research Group. This event is open to all – no matter how much or how little you think you know about the subject! We would be delighted to have a wide variety of interests and specialisms with us on the night, to make the most of the event.

The Group, set up by Dr. Tamar Jeffers McDonald and sponsered by the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Film and the Moving Image, is a cross-faculty research group which meets each Wednesday in term time to discuss melodrama on stage and screen. One of the most pertinent questions is, of course, what is melodrama, a question which seems to provide a different answer depending on the source material.

As part of this exploration of the genre, the Group will be hosting a read through of A Girl’s Cross-Roads, one of the Bad Women dramas from Walter Melville on Wednesday 5 June from 5-7pm in Jarman 7. Scripts will be provided on the evening, so join us to rediscover what the popular stage had to offer in the early years of the twentieth century and let out your inner thespian!

For more information, take a look at the Melodrama Research Group blog.

Discover Schartau’s Rowlandson

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Since the beginning of the year, Special Collections & Archives has been liaising with the Library’s Metadata team to make more of our uncatalogued book collections discoverable on the main library catalogue. Thanks to the hard work of the Metadata team, we’re delighted to announce that the first collection of books to be fully catalogued under this new scheme is now available.

Library Assistant for Metadata Josie Caplehorne tells us more:

Rowlandson's illustration of one of Dr Syntax's comedic episodes

Rowlandson’s illustration of one of Dr Syntax’s comedic episodes

The British Cartoon Archive: caricature and satire from the collection of Derek Schartau

We are pleased to announce that a treasure trove of rare books and periodicals from the collection donated by Derek Schartau is now available to discover at The British Cartoon Archive (BCA).  The collection consists of approximately three hundred items ranging in date from the late eighteenth century to the present day and focuses mainly around the English caricaturist, water-colourist, engraver and draughtsman, Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827).

The majority of Rowlandson’s drawings depict the humorous qualities of urban and rural existence and demonstrate his remarkable talent for portraying the English way of life.  His artistic predisposition was encouraged and supported by his aunt and as a result he studied at the Royal Academy Schools.  Rowlandson continued his studies in Paris where he later developed a reputation as a gifted cartoonist and satirist.

Rowlandson is one of the most talented English artists of his time who produced humorous, graphic and often racy works directed at Georgian and Regency society.  Our contemporary view of this period in our history as prudish and serious is refuted by Rowlandson with realism and humour.

Visit the British Cartoon Archive to discover the fascinating collection of Derek Schartau from The Forbidden Books of the Victorians and Rowlandson’s Drawings for the English Dance of Death to The Bruising Apothecary: Images of Pharmacy and Medicine in Caricature and The Forbidden Erotica of Thomas Rowlandson.

All of these books can now been discovered on the Library catalogue.

Any of these books can be requested via the normal Special Collections & Archives request service and viewed in the reading room.

Next up for the cataloguing team is another BCA collection, the Linfield Library of Humour which contains around 600 books. We look forward to making more of our currently uncatalogued collections publicly visible thanks to our Metadata team.

An Historical visit

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Just so that you know, tomorrow, Thursday 9 May, Special Collections will be hosting a visit of the local Canterbury branch of the Historical Association, to show off some of our local history – and some of our just exciting – materials. This means that the reading room will be closed from 1pm tomorrow in order to set up.

The visit will take place from 5-6pm; if you are interested in coming to see what sort of materials we have, please do feel free to drop in.

Even better, we are delighted to be hosting the Historical Association’s lecture at 7pm on the 9th May, which will be given by Dr Sally Dixon-Smith, Curator of the Tower of London, on Royal Beasts: the menagerie at the Tower of London. This will be held in TR201, on level 2 of the Templeman Library. All are welcome to attend; admission is free for students and HA members, all others are asked for a contribution of £3.

Rounding up…or rounding down

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Before you know it, it’s suddenly coming up to the start of the third and final term of the academic year. This year, term starts on the 6th May but as it’s the May Day Bank Holiday, Special Collections will be closed on this Monday. If you would like to order anything for the morning of Tuesday 7, please make sure that the request is with us by 4pm today.

It’s also going to be the final week of the Victorian & Edwardian Theatre Exhibition, curated by the students of Helen Brooks’ Theatre History module, which will be coming down on Friday 10 May. Please do pop in to see it if you have the chance. It’s on in the Templeman Gallery which is just behind the cafe on level 1 of the Templeman.

If you can’t catch it – or if you want to learn more – take a look at the websites which the students created to stand alongside their physical exhibitions. The gateway to these, and more information about the module, is available on the Special Collections website.

wild womenThe next exhibition in the space is being curated by Canterbury Christ Church University almunus and Kent member of staff Alyson Hunt, and is a collaboration with the Canterbury Christ Church University’s International Centre for Victorian Women Writers and UoK’s Centre for Gender, Sexuality and Writing. Featuring items from our Special Collections, Christ Church Special Collections and the Gulbenkian Theatre, Wild Woman to New Woman: Sex and Suffrage on the Victorian Stage, will explore changing depictions and attitudes towards women during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The exhibition will open on Tuesday 14 May, with a public lecture given by Professor Kate Newey (University of Exeter) at 6pm in Keynes Lecture Theatre 3.

As if that wasn’t enough, next week, on Thursday 9 May, the Templeman will host a lecture of the Canterbury Historical Association, which is open to all (members and students free, non-members £3). Dr Sally Dixon-Smith, Curator of the Tower of London, will be talking about Royal Beasts: The Menagerie at the Tower of London. This will take place at 7pm in TR201 on level 2 of the Templeman Library. As part of this, there will be a small exhibition of some Special Collections & Archives materials of particular interest in the Special Collections reading room, on Level 4 of the Templeman Library, from 5-6pm. Do come along to say hello and to learn more about the archives we hold for research, teaching and discovery.

The session getting started at the Marlowe Theatre

The session getting started at the Marlowe Theatre

And finally in our roundup, I’d just like to report on another exciting event which we were involved in this week. ‘Lifting the Curtain‘ was a three day programme of workshops, lectures and discussion, organised by UoK’s Department of Drama and Theatre and hosted by the Marlowe Theatre, in the heart of Canterbury. This provided a wide range of sessions for all attendees, particularly those wihout prior links to the University. Special Collections was involved in Dr. Helen Brooks‘ discussion and exploration session, all about the theatre in World War I. We provided some original and some copied materials for the attendees to explore, thinking about how theatre was effected by the war, and the role which theatre played and was seen to play, in the war effort. It was great to be greeted with such enthusiasm, once again, for these sources, and fasinating to be able to talk to such a wide range of people, from academics in non-performance disciplines, to those working in theatre, to those simply interested in drama. I’d like to thank the Department for making us part of this event, and helping to bring out collections to such a wide audience.

I think that’s about it for now, but do check back to see what new and exciting projects, materials and ideas we discover over the last few weeks of the academic year.

In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend and we’ll see you from Tuesday 7 May, next week.

Easter already! And some bank holiday closures

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What a term it’s been…and we haven’t even finished it yet! However, although term won’t finish until Friday 5 April, Special Collections will be closed over the Bank Holiday, from Thursday 28 March. We will reopen at 9.30 am on Tuesday 5 April.

Looking back on the last post I created in February, I am rather ashamed to note that I wrote it over a month ago. Many apologies for staying so out of the loop, but the time has gone so quickly that we really have had very little time to sit at our desks!

So what has been keeping us so busy? Well, our main business this term has been working with the lovely second year students of Dr. Helen Brooks’ theatre history module. We have worked on this in the past, but this year was the first time that Special Collections took such a major role in the teaching of the course. Over nine weeks, we have hosted seminars for the students and helped them to discover many of the gems in our theatre and performance archives from the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

Exhibition posterFor the final assessment, the students curated an exhibition of our materials on topics of their choice, brought together under the banner of ‘A Night at the Victorian and Edwardian Theatre’. These include such diverse themes as crime, characters, theatregoing and pantomime. For the first time, this year, we’ve used the public gallery space on level 1 of the Templeman, behind the cafe, for their display. Not only was the exhibition more public than ever before – demanding such skills as framing and spraymounting – but the students were also charged with the organisation of the whole process, including linking the exhibitions into one coherent whole and organising the launch.

As ever, the students created a fascinating and visually stunning exhibition, as well as a launch event, last Tuesday, which was enjoyed by everyone who attended. This included a ten minute pantomime, written for the occassion, and some painstakingly prepared snacks of cucumber sandwiches! As the culmination of the module, it was a lovely event to celebrate the success of the term.

Getting ready for the panto

Getting ready for the panto

If you happen to be in the Templeman, do come and have a look – but the exhibition won’t end when the materials come down in May. This is because the students also created digital exhibitions, so that their work will be available to look at in years to come. Take a look at their work on the Exhibitions Page. You can also take a look at some of the earlier years’ exhibitions by following the links.

Of course, we have more excitement planned and discoveries to make before the end of term – and then beyond – so do keep an eye on the Blog for updates.

And if you’re intrigued by the sound of this module – or theatre history in general, do come along to the third in our series of annual talks, which will be given by Helen Brooks on theatre during the First World War on 23 May 2013.

For now, have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.