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King's College - Maughan Library, Foyle Special Collections

At King's College, we visited the Foyle Special Collections in the Maughan Library. Katie Sambrook, the head of Special Collections, and her colleague Adam showed us a selection of items from their collection. 

The photos below showcase some of the material we saw, but another not shown was a tour book documenting the 1860 royal tour taken by the Prince of Wales, Edward, who was rumoured to have been chosen for it to quell his wild ways. It didn't work. Another interesting item was a book about the Polish ghetto, donated by a Holocaust survivor who collected items about the Jewish experience. Conservators deacidified the pages and laminated them to preserve them as much as possible. 


Vesalius'  On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543)

John Ogilby's America, Being an Accurate Description of the New World (1671)

A 1799 map of London
Extensive conservation has repaired the map's frayed edges

An example of a 19th-century chapbook

Katie noted that the Special Collections library started doing more teaching with their materials for students and other staff. An example she gave was engaging students to use and handle the materials to decipher its use and context based on its physical appearance as well as what was going on historically. Her aim was to encourage the students to figure out its importance and for what reason a publisher would print it. 

This space has had many purposes for many kings,
including an archive and public records office
 The staff were so kind and even prepared tea and cookies for us to enjoy while we looked around their display room (above). After tea we separated into two groups and were shown around the space as our guide told us lots of tidbits about the school and its history. Some notable facts about King's College: 
  • It is a large research university, ranked in the top 30 worldwide. 
  • It is the 4th oldest university in England. 
  • They have about 25,000 students, 1/3 of which are grad students.
  • They have a beautiful historic room that was once, among many other things, a library and records office. There are currently three funerary monuments for different Masters of the Roll included here.  
  • There is a very cool empty prison cell of a storage area that is seldom used except by the students as a study zone.
A 19th-century cell built on the advice of the fire brigade.
To avoid potential fires everything is made of brick, slate, and iron 


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