̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

̽��ֱ��big book visits the big library

sjr81 — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:12:14 +0000

Visitors to the Library on those days can let their imagination run wild with a huge 2.2 metre high, walk-in book, placed at the front of the building designed by Giles Gilbert Scott.

̽��ֱ��Big Book, entitled Imagine, is a leather-bound wooden sculpture that invites the ‘reader’ to step inside and write their own individual answer to the question: “What do you imagine?”

̽��ֱ��work of artist Diana Bell, the Big Book will be on display at the front entrance to the ̽��ֱ�� Library, on West Road, on Thursday 19^th, Friday 20^th and Saturday 21^st of May. ̽��ֱ��project is sponsored by the Library and Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press.

̽��ֱ��book made its debut at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, last year, when 1,200 people contributed in four days. Since then it has been an international traveller, collecting the thoughts of people in more than 57 languages.

̽��ֱ��Big Book represents not only the huge role books play in our society, but also how individuals collaborate and work together in search of knowledge. All the contributions are handwritten, in contrast to the challenges of the digital age that publishers now face.

Diana Bell said: “ ̽��ֱ��reason the contributions are all handwritten is to emphasise the huge role individuality and imagination plays in our lives, and the empathy and interaction it allows us to have. I didn’t think contributing online would have the same impact, but all the contributions are scanned and placed on the Big Book website, so I am definitely embracing the digital age too!”

So far about 1,900 people have written in the book, approximately 250 people per page. Diverse contributions include: “I imagine I could walk”, from a person in a wheelchair; “I imagine being an artist”, from a nine-year-old boy; “Try to imagine a totally new life“; “Imagine if humans were not the dominant species on the planet?”; “Imagine if all the bees died”, and “Imagine if we truly learned”.

And now it is time for the people of Cambridge to have their say, and take their place in the Big Book.

Community Relations Manager for Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press, Heidi Mulvey, said: “Our principal purpose is to advance knowledge and education and projects like this are a real inspiration. Diana’s project is so inclusive and engaging and we are delighted to be able to help bring this thought-provoking art project to Cambridge.”

A class from St. Luke’s Primary School and participants from Romsey Mill, the charity that works to overcome disadvantage and promote social inclusion, the Press’s sponsored charity for this year, will be amongst the first to write in the book at 10am on Thursday 19^th.

Deputy Librarian Sue Mehrer said: " This event is a wonderful opportunity for everyone who visits to be a part of Diana's work and record their thoughts. We look forward to welcoming as many people as possible to meet the artist and take part in the project."

̽��ֱ��Big Book will be outside Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s main entrance on West Road from 10am-7pm on Thursday, May 19th and Friday, May 20^th, and between 10am-5pm on Saturday, May 21st.

Diana added, “Imagine. Participate. Contribute. Absolutely everyone is invited, all languages, all age groups. I am particularly keen for contributions from mathematicians and scientists – are we the only animal that has imagination? Why do we have imaginary numbers? I will be on hand throughout the three days to answer any questions and encourage everyone to be part of this.”

After the visit, contributors can view their page, and others, at www.imaginethebigbook.com

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library is home to more than seven million books and is one of only six Legal Deposit libraries in the UK and Ireland – entitling it to a free copy of every book, journal, map and music published in the United Kingdom.

It may already be home to more than seven million books, but Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library is to host one of the world’s biggest books from May 19-21.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library is home to books of all shapes and sizes, but Diana's book is clearly something special.

Sue Mehrer, Deputy Librarian, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

CUP/Phil Mynott

Diana Bell and Cambridge school children with the Big Book outside Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

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Yes

Mapping the origins of a masterpiece

sjr81 — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:01:24 +0000

John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine is one of the world’s great cartographic treasures. Published in 1611/12, it marked the first time that comprehensive plans of English and Welsh counties and towns were made available in print.

To celebrate its 400^th anniversary, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library has digitised each of the proof maps and put them online at www.lib.cam.ac.uk/deptserv/maps/speed.html. ̽��ֱ��Library is also selling copies of the 60 plus images that make up Speed’s masterpiece.

Inset into the corner of each county map is a plan of its county town and each spare inch of space is used to illustrate famous battles, local coats of arms, as well as Roman and pre-historic sites.

̽��ֱ��atlas, bought by the ̽��ֱ�� Library in 1968, is now considered priceless. It contains a single sheet for each county of England and Wales, plus a map of Scotland and each of the four Irish provinces, and paints a rich picture of the countryside at the turn of the 17^th century.

A slice of Tudor and Jacobean life in miniature, its influence was so great that it was used by armies on both sides of the English Civil War.

Rivers wriggle through the landscape, towns are shown as huddles of miniature buildings, woods and parks marked by tiny trees and – with contour lines yet to be invented – small scatterings of molehills denote higher ground.

̽��ֱ��countryside bursts with human life: a ploughman and his two-horse team are at work in fields outside Worcester, a group of bathers enjoy the Roman spa at Bath, ducks paddle in the River Ouse at York, and the seas around Britain teem with fabulous sea monsters and ships in full sail.

Anne Taylor, Head of the Map Department at the ̽��ֱ�� Library, said: “Although the Library holds several copies of the published atlas – including a first edition – it is the hand-coloured set of proofs produced between 1603 and 1611 that is one of its greatest treasures.”

“It was bought by the ̽��ֱ�� Library in 1968 after the government refused an export licence for the proofs to be sold abroad. We know it as the Gardner copy after its previous owner (Eric Gardner). It really is a rare and delightful item.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridgeshire sheet includes portraits of robed academics, a pair of them holding the map’s scale bar as well as 24 coats of arms of the ̽��ֱ��, colleges and local nobility.

Accompanying each map in the published edition (but not the proofs) is a description of the county. Derived largely from William Camden’s Britannia, a topographical and historical survey of Great Britain and Ireland, the text offers an affectionate portrait of the city and its university, but a rather less appealing description of the Cambridgeshire countryside.

“This province is not large, nor the air greatly to be liked, having the Fenns so spread upon her North, that they infect the air far into the rest. ̽��ֱ��soil doth differ both in air and commodities; the Fenny surcharged with waters: the South is Champion, and yieldeth Corn in abundance, with Meadow-pastures upon both sides of the River Came,” he notes.

Born in Farndon, Cheshire in 1551 or 1552, John Speed was a historian as well as a cartographer, who paid tribute to earlier map-makers whose work he drew on, especially the county maps of the great Elizabethan surveyor Christopher Saxton. “I have put my sickle into other mens corne,” Speed wrote.

̽��ֱ��county maps were the first consistent attempt to show territorial divisions, but it was Speed’s town plans that were a major innovation and probably his greatest contribution to British cartography. Together, they formed the first printed collection of town plans of the British Isles and, for at least 50 of the 73 included in the Theatre, it was the first time these towns had been mapped.

̽��ֱ��Theatre was an immediate success: the first print run of around 500 copies must have sold quickly because many editions followed and, by the time of the 1627 edition, the atlas cost 40 shillings. It was a supreme achievement in British cartography. It made John Speed into one of the most famous of all our map-makers and became the blueprint for folio atlases until the mid-18^th century.

Published 400 years ago, the first comprehensive atlas of Great Britain is being celebrated by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library, home to one of only five surviving proof sets, all of which differ in their composition.

Although the Library holds several copies of the published atlas – including a first edition – it is the hand-coloured set of proofs produced between 1603 and 1611 that is one of its greatest treasures.

Anne Taylor, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

John Speed's proof map of Cambridgeshire

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Yes

Read all about it!

lw355 — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:44:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��flip side of contemporary fear of crime is our fascination with it. Repelled we might be, but the popularity of watching CCTV footage of real crimes or reading the latest salacious scandals in tabloids is testament to modern society’s appetite for stories that shock.

But this fascination with crime is not new; nor is the popularity of the materials that purvey it. Cambridge researcher Professor Alison Sinclair has set out to discover what Spain thought about wrongdoing between 1800 and 1936 by examining a wide range of sources, and in particular the equivalent of the mini-tabloids of the time – so-called chapbooks or pliegos sueltos – of which an extensive archive exists in Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Sold on street corners by hawkers and luridly illustrated, the sueltos carried vivid tales of the unlawful, the improper and the morally corrupt.

‘Spain in the 19th century was chaotic and troubled. It has no literary work that is the equivalent of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and yet the figures for violent crime in the 19th century in Europe place Spain as one of the countries highest on the list,’ explains Professor Sinclair, whose three-year research project has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

‘With their mix of fact and fantasy, the sueltos provide a window not only into wrongdoing at the time but also into its representation and the way people perceived it, thus complementing in a completely original way other literary and cultural representations of wrongdoing.’

̽��ֱ��sueltos spoke to an audience entranced by the exploits of such characters as Francisquillo the Tailor, a boastful chap whose scissors turn out to be his major weapon in a series of dramatic standoffs about honour. A recurring (and real) character is Diego Corrientes, a Spanish Robin Hood figure who took from the rich and gave to the poor, and who died by hanging aged 24 years.

A key feature of the project will be to catalogue and digitise 4,470 sueltos held in the ̽��ֱ�� Library and the British Library. Many are in an exceptionally fragile state and a goal of the project is to create a world-class and accessible collection, which will be held in the ̽��ֱ��’s central repository DSpace@Cambridge (www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/).

Clearly related to a specific time and place, the project raises questions relevant for modern society. As Professor Sinclair, from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, comments: ‘ ̽��ֱ��research will help us to question, as cultural consumers, our excited and emotional responses to this sort of material, including processes of identification and voyeurism.’

For more information, please contact Professor Alison Sinclair (as49@cam.ac.uk).

A new study of wrongdoing and its cultures in Spain from 1800 to 1936 will explore the fascination of popular versions of crime and other misdemeanours.

With their mix of fact and fantasy, the sueltos provide a window not only into wrongdoing at the time but also into its representation and the way people perceived it..

Professor Alison Sinclair

Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Pliegos sueltos Diego Corrientes (S743.1.c.8.2)

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Yes