This is the first in a series of three blog posts from students on the module ‘Making History: Archive Collaborations’. Alex, Wenxuan and Yifan have been working with the Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive to research and celebrate the organisation’s 50 year history. Each student has explored a different research angle, and this week Wenxuan is going to share her work around marginalised voices and LGBTQ+ experience in the Women’s Aid Archive. ‘Womens Aid’ postcard, MS 2265/4/7/8. Images courtesy of the Women’s Aid Federation of England. The Women’s Aid Federation is committed to helpin ..read more

Rachel Eckersley, Rare Book Specialist writes: In 2022 our Special Collections blog featured a fascinating article about Leeds University Library’s rare copy of the play ‘A Yorkshire tragedie : Not so new, as lamentable and true‘ (1619), which according to the title page was written by a certain William Shakespeare. Re-printed by William Jaggar for Thomas Pavier in 1619, it was first published in 1608 and is now generally regarded as the work of the playwright and poet Thomas Middleton (1580-1627). It dramatizes the real-life case of Walter Calverley of Calverley Hall, near Leeds, who was exe ..read more

What is a multi-part thesis?  A multi-part thesis is essentially a thesis where the examined work consists of multiple elements, aside from the written PDF commentary. Additional content can potentially include a variety of file types (jpegs, MP3, MP4), which form a fundamental part of the thesis. Prior to the pilot, such submissions were limited to students in the Faculty of AHC who were enrolled under the University’s practice-led thesis protocol.  Why think about multi-part theses?  The White Rose Etheses Online (WREO) repository was introduced in 2009 to accommodate research ..read more

Approaching your dissertation can be a very daunting prospect. For many, it is the culmination of your undergraduate degree. The decision period for your dissertation comes around alarmingly quickly. For most subjects you are required to make proposal decisions in the summer before your final year, and it can feel difficult to give this focused attention at the end of a busy academic year. As a student currently facing into the final month of the dissertation, I want to offer a student perspective to approaching the project. To be clear, my advice comes from my personal experience as an Englis ..read more

Karen Sayers, Archivist, writes: The Brotherton Collection contains an interesting series of 17th century surveys, rentals, leases and accounts connected to property and land in Yorkshire. Much of the material relates to administrative units of land known as manors and includes those of Marrick, Gilling and Settrington. The surveys and rentals contain the names of the tenants living and working on the land in the turbulent years of the English Civil War (1642-1651) and its aftermath. The documents were generated by the partnership of Sir Robert Clayton (1629-1707) and John Morris (c.1627-1682 ..read more

What is a Makerspace? “A makerspace is a collaborative workspace inside a school, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools.” Makerspaces.com. 2022. What is a Makerspace? [Online]. [04/03/2024]. Available from: https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace/ Located in the Edward Boyle is the libraries’ very own Makerspace where you can learn new skills and spend time working on projects either for your assignments or just for fun! It is open to both staff and students and following an induction wit ..read more

As Northern Ballet prepares to bring Romeo & Juliet back to the stage, our current exhibition in The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery tells the turbulent story of this classic production. Co-curator of Preserving the Passion Charlotte Murray picks out five of our key exhibits, with thoughts from two former dancers who are passing on their experience to the new cast: Getting to the pointe Pippa Moore’s pointe shoes Northern Ballet’s Artistic, Learning and Academy Associate Artist Pippa Moore MBE joined the company as a dancer in 1996, and made her role debut as Juliet in 2003. You can he ..read more

In February we welcomed Kelly Woods, Publisher at F1000, to talk about the Open Research Europe publishing platform that enables European Commission-funded researchers to rapidly publish any results they think are worth sharing, including negative or null results. It is just one of several similar platforms run by F1000 including Wellcome Open Research, Gates Open Research and the F1000 platform itself. Our second speaker was Patricia Ternes Dallagnollo, currently a Research Software Engineer at the University of Leeds and previously Research Fellow in the School of Geography. Patric ..read more

Rare and beautiful books chart the evolution of furniture design over the centuries and the journey from drawing board, to workshop, to home, in our current exhibition in Treasures of the Brotherton, Part of the Furniture: The Library of John Bedford.  Part of the Furniture features ornate pattern designs, elaborate trade cards, colourful catalogues, drawings and manuals selected from the world-leading library of antiques dealer John Bedford. Together, they show how ideas and trends took shape, gained influence, and were eventually revived as fashions came full circle. The exhibition expl ..read more

For our regular open lunch event in January we welcomed three speakers to talk about research and the media. Andy Tattersall is Information Specialist in the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield. Anna Barker is an Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology in the School of Law. Kersti Mitchell is Media Relations Manager at the University of Leeds and former producer and reporter at BBC Look North. A full recording of the event is available on YouTube: The missing link: the quality of UK local and national online media coverage of resea ..read more