This month we have chosen books from the University Rare Books Collections about theatres. On display we have: “Good old Gaiety”: An Historiette and Remembrance by John Hollingshead, This includes photographs of performers from the Gaiety Theatre. The Gaiety was …

At the Theatre – From the Rare Books Collection Read more »

Ladies and gentlefolk, take your seats for the latest theatre experience Portsmouth has to offer – a journey through time, with exhibits from the renovation and refurbishment of Portsmouth King’s Theatre from the pre-fabricated reinforced cast plaster coving to push plates polished to thin wafers of brass, and other preserved curiosities now on display in the first floor display area of the University Library.

ale supplies many primary historical resources: searchable collections of scanned documents, photographs and other footage from ages past up until the end of the last century. In this video, Gale’s experts explain how to get the most from Declassified documents, their collection of secret papers that have since been declassified and made available for study.

The Union of Jewish Students is offering a massively subsidised educational experience including a day trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Funded by the Lessons from Auschwitz University Project, the course comprises an online seminar about the Holocaust, an in-person seminar on campus focusing on Jewish life and anti-Semitism on campus, a day trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a concluding online seminar for just £59.

Like diamonds, few pearls today are found by chance. Unlike diamonds, which can be manufactured on demand in a laboratory, pearls are still grown organically. Literally, they are grown inside of shellfish in response to a deliberately introduced irritant. I would sign off here saying ‘the rest is history’ but as this video shows, the process is actually surprisingly involved and painstaking care has to be taken to ensure a smooth, even, entire pearl is produced every time. It’s truly an expert process.

We are excited to begin the new year by presenting you with the archives of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) covering 1482-2010.
Funded by research funding from our success in the last Research Excellence Framework exercise, this archive of historical geography is extensive and includes Maps, Atlases, Charts and Plans; Expedition Reports; Fieldnotes, Correspondence and Diaries; Grey Literature; Photographs, Artwork and Illustrations; Journal Manuscripts; Photographs; Proceedings, Lectures, and Ephemera. The collection spans a wide variety of interdisciplinary research areas, and supports educational needs in Anthropology, Area Studies; Cartography and Visualizations, Colonial, Post-Colonial & Decolonisation Studies; Development Studies; Environmental Degradation; Historical & Cultural Geography; Historical Sociology; Human Geography; Identity, Gender & Ethnic Studies; Geology; International Relations; Trade and Commerce, and Law and Policy relating to Colonization and over a hundred special collections.

Gale Primary Sources and AM are both fantastic sources of primary resources for anyone studying the history of many subjects. Documentary sources run the gamut from British and US intelligence to crime, punishment and popular culture in the 19th century, and from the history of sexuality to political extremism, taking in many 18th and 19 century British and US newspapers along the way.

We are delighted to announce that we have just added another eresource from AM Digital (formerly Adam Matthew) that is very relevant to Portsmouth: Life at sea. This new database gives you access to three centuries of archives from the UK and America that chronicle the lives of ordinary seamen, merchants, whalers, and pirates.

Card catalogues - a relic from a bygone era in libraries.

Before the internet, before computers, before typewriters and the skill of typing was commonplace, there were handwritten catalogue cards. What few people realise is that librarians developed a distinctive handwriting style specifically to make these cards easily readable and therefore functional. Enter the ultra-clear written script of ‘Library hand’.