Hot off the lorry: the Landscape Institute archive and library has arrived!
written by Nancy Fulford, Project Archivist. We are really excited to welcome the archive, library and associated architect’s collections of the Landscape Institute at MERL. Earlier this year the Institute decided that we would be the new home for these collections which have largely been in storage and inaccessible since 2008. The Landscape Institute was […]
Project news: Rural images discovered: Colin Shaw
written by Nancy Fulford, Project Archivist. A couple of weeks ago marked the end of the Rural Images Discovered Project which has seen over 15,000 prints digitised, and many more negatives and prints catalogued from the John Tarlton, Farmers Weekly, Peter Adams and Colin Shaw photographic collections. I came to the Colin Shaw collection towards the […]
Picture of the month #4: Picking up the last of the Harvest
As our Photographic Assistant is on leave this week, I thought I would try and use our database to find a suitable harvest image. I have to admit I usually run straight to my colleagues in the reading room when I need something from the archives, so I was really pleased that the terms I […]
Picture of the Month #3: Steam-powered buses
written by Caroline Benson, Photographic Asssistant Anyone who has experienced public transport during the hot summer months may like these two photographs where air conditioning is readily available. They are both from an album in the archive of Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies Ltd held here at MERL. Both date from the early 1870s and show […]
Picture of the month #2: Tilting tractor
This month’s picture has been selected by Guy Baxter, University Archivist, as one of the images featured in a new MERL calendar… This image, from the photographic archive of Farmers Weekly, shows a Fordson Major tractor demonstrating tilting in 1947 – it was clearly an important test because the driver is wearing a tie and a […]
5 mins with…Claire Smith
Claire Smith is our Learning Assistant and part of our Visitor Services team, so if you’ve been to MERL recently, you will probably have met her! This week she’s been busy preparing for the school holidays, and has learnt a new skill… What have you been working on this week? This week I’ve been working […]
Focus on collections #2: Collecting your #muscake (and eating it!)
Sit back with a cup of tea and a piece of cake (of course) and take a few minutes to read this fascinating post by Assistant Curator, Dr Ollie Douglas, on the little known cake-related collections at MERL (and elsewhere)… Here at the Museum we’ve been eating rather a lot of cake. The frenetic activity […]
Picture of the Month #1: The John Tarlton Collection
written by Caroline Benson, Photographic Assistant. The current temporary exhibition at MERL features the work of the photographer John Tarlton. This wonderful collection came to the museum in 2004 and now, on the completion of the Rural Images Discovered Project, we are ready to promote its full commercial potential. These two photographs showing domestic scenes […]
MERL project news #1 – Hugh Sinclair papers now available
written by Hayley Whiting, Hugh Sinclair Project Archivist The papers of Dr Hugh Macdonald Sinclair DM, DSc, FRCP (1910-90) are now available at MERL. This marks the end of nearly five years of work by me, the Hugh Sinclair Project Archivist. It has been a very interesting, challenging, and rewarding project funded by the Hugh […]
Research tip #1: if in doubt…
Here is the first in what we will become a regular series on the blog – research tips from the MERL library and archive team. Trying to find out about collections can be a difficult and frustrating business. Our online catalogues and finding aids are now very large and while it’s great to have so […]