January Book Sale

The MERL shop kicks off 2017 with the traditional January Sale. This is your chance to pick up some fantastic bargains, especially among our wide range of books. None of us know what the internet sensation of 2017 will be. But there is no doubt that the sensation of 2016 was the MERL mousetrap story! […]

Ladybird books needed!

Do you have any Ladybird books at home that you no longer want to keep or that your children no longer read? Would you like to help contribute to a display in the new galleries at The MERL? We are looking for Ladybird books to form part of a duplicate set of the books which we will use […]

Discovering the Landscape: landscape research bursaries available

This year, thanks to generous funding from the Landscape Institute, we are pleased to offer bursaries to encourage use and engagement with our varied and fascinating landscape collections.  Read more about our Landscape Institute collection here, including the collections of Geoffrey Jellicoe, Sylvia Crowe and Brenda Colvin.  See a full list of our collections here. […]

Discovering the Landscape: From London traffic to an Italian Prisoner of War camp

Over the course of a large scale cataloguing project, many hundreds of items pass through your hands.  Since acquiring the library and archive of the Landscape Institute in late 2013, we have made nearly 2500 books available to readers here at MERL.  Added to this figure are metres of journals and pamphlets – and this is […]

Discovering the Landscape: Dublin of the Future (1922)

This post highlights Dublin of the future: new town plan by Patrick Abercrombie, Sydney Kelly and Arthur Kelly (University of Liverpool Press, 1922) – a title from our MERL Library Landscape Institute collections with intriguing context and provenance. Patrick Abercrombie (1879-1957) was a town planner active in the interwar period.  He played a leading role in planning […]

Interview with Reading Room Assistant Ceri (Pt. 1)

Marketing Volunteer Whitney continues her series of interviews with staff talking to Ceri Lumley, Reading Room Assistant What does your job entail at MERL? I’m split between working in the reading room and doing background tasks. Three days of the week I’m down in the reading room answering enquiries, doing production, getting documents out and […]

Reading Readers – Felicity McWilliams

For this month’s Reading Readers blog, PhD student Felicity McWilliams (a familiar face at MERL) gives us an insight into how the MERL collections are playing a part in her research of draught power technology in the 20th century. Last September, I left my post as Project Officer at the Museum to embark upon an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral […]

Discovering the Landscape: Treasures Exhibition at the University Library

We’re delighted that this exhibition can now be seen at the University Library: Discovering the Landscape: treasures from the collections of the Landscape Institute Where? University Library Foyer, Whiteknights campus When? April – June 2016  (during opening hours) What? This display will showcase a selection of important archive materials and books from the Landscape Institute collections, […]

Reading Readers – Alex Bowmer

For this month’s Reading Readers blog, PhD student Alex Bowmer gives us an insight into how the MERL archives and object collections are playing a part into his research of livestock health. As a collaborative doctoral awarded PhD candidate, I split my time between King’s College London and here at The Museum of English Rural Life. […]

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