Something worth crowing about: our new Poultry Archive project
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new project to develop and explore some of our poultry-related archive collections! Whether your interest is professional, amateur or just beginning, we will have delights from our archives and library aplenty for you over the coming months. Thanks to the generous support of the Poultry Club […]
Research bursaries available: Land Settlement Association and Landscape Institute
This year, thanks to the generous funding from an anonymous donor and the Landscape Institute we are pleased to offer bursaries to encourage use and engagement with our Land Settlement or Landscape Institute archives. The Land Settlement Association was established in 1934 to provide employment on the land for unemployed industrial workers from depressed areas. Find out more here. The Landscape Institute was founded in 1929 […]
Discovering the landscape: cut it out!
Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Librarian Over the past few years, my colleague Jen (Landscape Institute Archivist) and I have been working to integrate the library and archive of the Landscape Institute into the collections of the Museum of English Rural Life. The LI collections are rich and varied, including material such as books, pamphlets, […]
Improved Open Access Library fully accessible again
The MERL and Special Collections Open Access Library is now fully accessible again! In this library, which can be accessed from the Reading Room, you can find reference works relating to our Special Collections and to Samuel Beckett, as well as the library collection of the MERL, consisting of about 50,000 books, pamphlets and periodical volumes. We have been working hard to […]
Discovering the landscape: lost landscapes of Michael Brown
In this post Amber Roberts, recipient of MERL’s landscape academic engagement bursary talks about her work on our Michael Brown collection (Landscape Institute collections). Michael Brown’s work is unfortunately little known to today’s landscape architects. Thanks to a generous research bursary from MERL I have been able to delve into his archive and begin to uncover Brown’s idiosyncratic approach, his lost landscapes and […]
Access to the MERL and Special Collections Library: May 2017
Due to essential maintenance work, we regret to inform you that access to the MERL and Special Collections open access library corridor will be restricted or unavailable on the following dates: Tuesday 16 May – Thursday 18 May Tuesday 23 May – Friday 26 May This will affect access to Special Collections and MERL open […]
Landscape Education in the UK: past present and future
On Saturday 1 April 2017 MERL hosted a FOLAR (Friends of the Landscape Library and Archive at Reading) study day on the topic of: ‘Landscape Architecture and Management Education in the UK: past present and future’. The day included talks and a pop up display of archive and library material from our Landscape Institute collections. FOLAR […]
Discovering the Landscape: Student bursary winners announced
We are delighted to announce that Moa Carlsson and Tianyi Jiang have been awarded Landscape Student Travel Bursaries. The purpose of the two student travel bursaries is to enable students to access collections held at Reading related to landscape, including landscape design, management and architecture. Moa is a doctoral student at the Department of Architecture […]
Access to The MERL periodicals
Due to essential maintenance work, we regret to inform you that The MERL periodicals will be unavailable from Monday 13th February 2017 until further notice. These are the volumes found in the rooms at the far end of the open access library corridor and includes Country Life, The Engineer, Farmers Weekly, Farmer & Stockbreeder, The Field […]
Students: apply for a landscape research bursary before the end of February
Why should I apply? Our landscape collections are pretty special. Read this overview of our landscape collections or search our combined library, archive and object catalogue. Take a look at reasons to use our landscape collections in your research and topic and resource ideas. But could I apply? Are you: A) A taught undergraduate or postgraduate student? B) […]