Archives and Special Collections

It is amazing the resources that Durham University has. Sarah Price from the Palace Green Library gave a fascinating, enjoyable and useful presentation and tour of the Palace Green special collection today. She is keen for more people to take advantage of the collection. She has helped teachers and students from history, classics, anthropology, the sciences and engineering to take advantage of the collections.

There are a range of materials that would be of interest to researchers and teachers across subject multiple subject disciplines (not just history). There are science manuscripts, old maps, legal documents, novels, records, photos and even spears! One item, a death book, detailed how different people in London had died during the era of the plague. Causes of death recorded include "teeth" and "impotence".

Sarah does a lot of outreach work with schools. She is also involved in many education digitisation projects where the archives are made available online. Things that are not digitised already could be on request. There is a lot in the collection which could be used, and Sarah is keen to hear from people who are interested.