The return of King Alfred
It was just before Christmas that marked King Alfred’s return to Reading, 1143 years after the siege and loss of the town to Ivar the Boneless in 871 CE and Alfred’s subsequent exile to a swamp (where he took up a bit of baking). We’re not talking about the actual Alfred of course, the site of whose […]
MERL in Marseilles: reflections on the International Congress of Agricultural Museums
Ollie Douglas, Assistant Curator at MERL, reflects on the common challenges faced by museums similar to MERL around the world, after attending the International Congress of Agricultural Museums. At the beginning of November, Isabel Hughes, MERL Curator, and I travelled to Marseilles to present MERL’s latest ideas to an international audience. Our presentations formed part of […]
Discovering the Landscape #9: 1000 books catalogued!
Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute We are delighted to be able to say 1000 books from the Landscape Institute library have now been integrated into our MERL library collection. Each book has been cleaned, processed, catalogued and labelled. The books are available in our open access library. A small number of rare books […]
'Rural reads plus' review: The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch
Written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Co-ordinator Last month we read The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch; this was the first book we’ve read since the group became ‘Rural Reads plus…’ and we expanded our remit to include books inspired by the University’s Special Collections. The Unicorn was a perfect read to bridge both rural reads and […]
Weekly what's on: 24th to 28th November
Although the MERL galleries and garden are currently closed for redevelopment, there are still events and activities taking place at the Museum and Special Collections. Below are details of this week’s events. Further details of forthcoming events can be found on the MERL What’s On pages or on the Special Collections pages. Huntley & Palmers: a Christmas selection 25 […]
Town and Country: William Shenstone & Leasowes Park
Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives. How interdependent are town and country? How do they rely on each other, and where does one end and the other begin? It is a theme we’re exploring in great detail for Our Country Lives and, considering around 90% of English people live in urban areas, a […]
Changing Faces: Dismantling the old Museum
Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives. The Museum has now been closed a little over two weeks, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy behind the scenes. Although visitors to our Archive & Library, steered through the shop to our tranquil Reading Room, may be entirely unaware of the scale of […]
Discovering the Landscape #8: New Pinterest board
Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute The Landscape Institute collections are exciting and visual, as can be seen through the wealth of images we have used in this ‘Discovering the Landscape’ series of blog posts. Now we have created a new Pinterest board dedicated to the Landscape Institute on MERL’s Pinterest site. Pinterest is […]
How many curators…?
As part of our ‘Shut, but not shutting up!’ social media campaign to stay in touch during MERL’s closure period, this week we’re launching ‘How many curators…?’, a new behind the scenes vlog channel on Youtube. Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator and budding film director/producer/actor/anchor, will be meeting members of staff and volunteers, talking to them […]
Project update: Shut, but not shutting up!
Alison Hilton, Marketing Officer, explains that although the museum galleries are now closed for redevelopment, the reading room and gift shop are open, work behind the scenes continues, and a social media campaign is planned to keep the followers up to date with activities and project progress during the closure period. Although the museum galleries […]