Cambridge Digital Library

Bateson-Punnett Notebooks

William Bateson (1861-1926) and Reginald Punnett (1875-1967) were the founders of experimental genetics in Britain and the main advocates of Gregor Mendel's models of inheritance. Their experiments are recorded in a series of laboratory notebooks acquired by Cambridge University Library from the Department of Genetics, a selection of which is now presented here.

Board of Longitude

Cambridge University Library holds the entire archive of the Board of Longitude, the state organization established in the eighteenth century to evaluate methods for finding ships’ position and to encourage a host of projects in instrument design, clock-making, mapping and voyaging.

The Cairo Genizah Collection

The Taylor-Schechter Cairo Genizah Collection at Cambridge University Library is the world's largest and most important single collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts.

Cambridge University Archives

The University Archives aims to provide a full and richly varied picture over time of the University's organisation and governance, its key functions and activities, major developments and achievements. From modest beginnings, housed alongside other valuables in the University chest, the archives now occupy ca 3000 metres of shelving at the University Library.

Chinese Works

The Chinese collections comprise about half a million individual titles. The items displayed here show the temporal range, diversity of media and variety of subject-matter contained within the collections, from the oracle bones (the oldest documents in the Library), to unique manuscripts and printed books, historical documents and epigraphical rubbings.

Christian Works

A selection of some of our finest Christian manuscripts and early printed books, from the Bible to the liturgy, spanning over 1000 years of worship and debate.

Civilian Internment

The Royal Commonwealth Society Collection at Cambridge University Library has digitized the archives of two Second World War civilian internment camps established by the Japanese at Singapore, generously funded by a Research Resources Award from the Wellcome Trust. The records are of immense interest to the families of internees and a wide range of researchers, since few survivors ever spoke of their traumatic ordeal.

Curious Objects

Amongst the Library’s extraordinary collection of around eight million printed books, manuscripts and digital holdings are some unusual and unexpected items. From an ostrich feather and ectoplasm to an old boot, a boomerang and beard hair sent to Charles Darwin, the curious objects in the second public exhibition of our 600th anniversary year come from all corners of the world and span every era of human history from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

Darwin Manuscripts

The Charles Darwin Papers in the Manuscripts Department of Cambridge University Library hold nearly the entire extant collection of Darwin’s working scientific papers. Paramount among these documents are Charles Darwin’s Evolution Manuscripts, which are being published online at the Cambridge Digital Library and simultaneously at the Darwin Manuscripts Project in collaboration with the Darwin Correspondence Project.

Darwin-Hooker Letters

These letters are a connecting thread that spans forty years of Darwin's mature working life from 1843 until his death in 1882. They bring into sharp focus every aspect of Darwin's scientific work throughout that period, and illuminate the mutual friendships he and Hooker shared with other scientists, but they also provide a window of unparalleled intimacy into the personal lives of the two men.

Downing College

Downing College was founded by Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet, with wealth inherited from his grandfather, the 1st Baronet, a statesman who served both Cromwell and Charles II and built No. 10 Downing Street. Provision for a new Cambridge College was made in the founder’s will in 1717 but, following his death in 1749 and the death of his only surviving heir in 1764, a protracted legal battle with his widow and her heirs meant that the new College was not founded until 1800, the first new Cambridge college in over 200 years.

Exhibition Items

The Library holds regular exhibitions, usually organised around a particular theme or collection. Depending on the chosen theme, the exhibition cases might contain anything from irreplaceable works of world importance to newspapers or printed ephemera. They demonstrate the breadth of the Library's holdings and often yield surprises.

Fairbank Papers

The diaries and photographs digitised here give a vivid impression of the life of an army surgeon during the First World War, first on the Western Front, including the Second Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Loos, and later in Salonika.

Forman and Napier Casebooks

The astrologer-physicians Simon Forman and Richard Napier recorded 80,000 consultations between 1596 and 1634. This is one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. Forman’s and Napier’s casebooks are presented here as part of a collaboration between the Cambridge University Digital Library and the Casebooks Project.

Hebrew Manuscripts

For over five hundred years Cambridge University has been building up one of the world’s most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts.

Islamic Manuscripts

The Library's Islamic Manuscripts collection began in the 1630s and now numbers over 5,000 works, which shed light on many aspects of the Islamic world, its beliefs and learning. Our initial selection includes several early Qur'anic fragments on parchment.

Japanese Works

Items from Cambridge University Library's important collection of early Japanese books and manuscripts, representing a wide range of the various aspects of early Japanese learning and excellent samples of Japan’s early printing culture.

Joseph Needham

Dr. Joseph Needham FRS, FBA (1900-1995) was one of the most outstanding intellectuals of the 20th century. As Reader in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow (later Master) of Gonville and Caius College, in the inter-war years he was one of a group of left-wing, socially active scientists that included such figures as J.D. Bernal, C.H. Waddington and J.B.S. Haldane, among others. His interests and publications ranged far and wide beyond biochemistry - from the history of science and the relationships between science and religion, to steam trains and morris dancing.

Lewis-Gibson

In August 2013 Cambridge University Library and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, jointly purchased 1700 medieval Jewish manuscripts collected by the twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis (1843–1 926) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1843–1920). The manuscripts were acquired by the two Scotswomen as they passed through Egypt on their adventurous visits to the monastery at St Catherine’s, Sinai, to inspect its ancient library towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Lines of Thought

Across six themes, this exhibition highlights key moments in the evolution of human thought. They show how the collections here in Cambridge represent and underpin some of the most significant developments in human history. The books, manuscripts, archives and digital objects we house do not stand in isolation. Thousands of lines of thought run through them, back into the past and forward into tomorrow’s teaching, learning, research and innovation.

Maps

The Map Department of Cambridge University Library holds 1.3 million maps and over 40,000 atlases and books on cartography, covering the whole world in a range of scales, from detailed topographic maps showing the lie of the land and the man-made features resting upon it, to world maps showing ocean currents or time zones.

Michaelides

Papyrus was the main writing material of the Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic societies in Egypt for 4,000 years before paper took its place. The bulk of historical, linguistic, social and economic evidence of the early Islamic Era can be found on papyrus originally produced in Egypt. The Michaelides fragments comprise the largest private collection of Arabic papyri to be found in any institution worldwide.

Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest

This complex manuscript is a palimpsest containing portions of two ancient Qurʼāns, probably written in the 7th or 8th century CE. Alba Fedeli, a scholar of Qurʼānic manuscripts, has engaged in an extensive research project, uncovering the historic context of the Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest and applying new methods in an attempt to create a possible reconstruction of the Qurʼānic under-writing.

Montaigne's Library

The Montaigne Library of Gilbert de Botton is a remarkable collection of books connected with the life and times of Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), including ten volumes from Montaigne’s personal library. It was assembled by the Montaigne scholar and financier Gilbert de Botton (1935–2000) and came to Cambridge University Library in 2008.

Music

The music collections at Cambridge University Library play an important role in the preservation of musical heritage, both on a national and international level. From printed and manuscript music scores and texts on music to ephemera and concert programmes, archival materials documenting the life and work of composers, music scholars and performers, a huge variety and breadth of material has been collected over several centuries. We launch with a selection of important early lute music, digitised and described in collaboration with the Lute Society.

Newton Papers

Cambridge University Library holds the largest and most important collection of the scientific works of Isaac Newton (1642-1727). We present here an initial selection of Newton's manuscripts, concentrating on his mathematical work in the 1660s.

Oliver Rackham

Born in Bungay, Suffolk, in 1939, Oliver Rackham was educated at Norwich School, matriculated at Corpus Christi College in 1957, and was elected Fellow of the college in 1964. Although he began by studying physics, as a graduate student he turned his attention to botany, particularly the physiology of plant growth and transpiration.

Pembroke College

Pembroke College, founded in 1347 by Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke, is the third oldest of the Cambridge colleges, it was the first to have its own chapel (Christopher Wren’s first building). In order to make the College’s collections more accessible, we are hoping to make some of our unique items available digitally.

Peterhouse Manuscripts

Peterhouse (founded 1284) is the oldest of the Cambridge Colleges, and holds a significant collection of medieval manuscripts. As part of the process of recataloguing and preserving the College's collections, it has been decided to present highlights from the Peterhouse manuscripts in digital form.

Royal Asiatic Society

The Royal Asiatic Society was founded in 1823 by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Henry Thomas Colebrooke. It received its royal charter the following year from George IV for the ‘ investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of Science, Literature and the Arts in relation to Asia’. Throughout its history many distinguished scholars have contributed to its work and today it provides an active forum for those who are interested in Asia.

Royal Commonwealth Society

The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) Library collections are a treasure-trove of information, pictorial and written, print and manuscript, focussing on the Commonwealth and Britain's former colonial territories. This initial selection includes some of the spectacular art work and photograph collections in the RCS Library.

Royal Library

In September 1715, King George I made a gift to Cambridge University Library that would change it for ever - over 30,000 books and manuscripts, trebling the size of the Library overnight. Amongst the remarkable items in this collection are the Moore Bede, the Book of Deer and the Life of Edward the Confessor.

Sanskrit Manuscripts

A full catalogue of our Sanskrit manuscript collection, comprising more than 1,600 works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Tamil and other ancient and medieval South Asian languages, produced over a time-span of more than 1,000 years.

Sassoon Journals

The notebooks kept by the soldier-poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1 967) during his service in the British Army in the First World War are among the most remarkable documents of their kind, and provide an extraordinary insight into his participation in one of the defining conflicts of European history.

Sidney Sussex College

Sidney Sussex College was founded on 14 February 1596, as a ‘good and godlie monument for the mainteynance of good learninge’ in accordance with the will of Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (d. 1589). Although the youngest of the old Cambridge colleges, Sidney has acquired 121 manuscripts, ranging in date from a late 10th-century Ordinale to a 19th-century Torah scroll.

Spanish Chapbooks

These predecessors of the yellow press provide a fascinating bird’s eye view of Spanish popular culture from the eighteenth century onwards.

Tennyson

Cambridge is home to many of the most significant manuscripts of Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–92). The bulk of these materials are held at Trinity College, where Tennyson was a student between 1827 and 1831. In 1897 the College was presented with the earliest extant full-scale draft of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s most famous poem.

Treasures of the Library

In this special collection we draw together books, manuscripts and other items of particular significance. Many of them have been displayed in Library exhibitions in the past – now they can be accessed at any time, from anywhere in the world, and browsed cover to cover.

Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was the climactic engagement of a campaign that pitted an invading French army under Napoleon Bonaparte against a combined force of Allied troops. The French were routed, and the warfare that had plagued Europe for more than two decades was definitively ended: there were to be no hostilities on such a scale on the continent until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Through its impact on the politics and power-relationships of a Europe approaching the height of its worldwide influence, the outcome of Waterloo remains significant to this day.

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