World Digital Preservation Day 2025: Why Preserve?
To celebrate World Digital Preservation Day 2025, we are posting about the recent project to identify, take in and preserve material relating to the discovery and identification of Richard III. This work was completed by Assistant Digital Archivist Ruth Maguire. In August 2012, University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS), in collaboration with the Richard III […]
Student placement in Special Collections, Week 5-6
Guest post written by Yi-Chen Su and Yongqin Huang, who are completing an eight week placement in Archives & Special Collections as part of their MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies . Yi-Chen Su During week 5 and week 6, we mainly wrote the interpretations for our exhibition. The process of writing the interpretations […]
The Alice Hawkins Collection
By Iona Kerstin Volynets 6 September 2025 From July 2009 to June 2010, a team of devoted volunteers at the LeicestHERday Trust gathered 150 interviews of prominent women from Leicestershire. These women ranged from being born in the 1920s to the 1980s and hailed from places as close as Hinckley and as far as Australia […]
Ukrainian History Unearthed in East Midlands Oral History Archive’s Polish Collection
By Iona Kerstin Volynets September 05, 2025 Content warning: This article includes mentions of massacres, war, labour camps, death, and illness. Where are you from? While for some of us, the answer is simple, for others, responding is more complicated. For two of the narrators in the East Midlands Oral History Archive’s Polish Project, the […]
Reflections on my Professional Fellowship: Part Two
In February 2024, I was awarded a Professional Fellowship from The National Archives andResearch Libraries UK Professional Fellowship Scheme, 2024-2025. The Fellowship aims to foster collaboration, strengthen relationships, and address collective challenges faced by research and cultural organisations. During my Professional Fellowship, I focused on the critical question: ‘How can archive services […]
Student placement in Special Collections, Week 3-4
Guest post written by Yi-Chen Su and Yongqin Huang, who are completing an eight week placement in Archives & Special Collections as part of their MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies . Yongqin Huang Hello, I’m Yongqin Huang. Weeks three and four of placement were a bit hectic for us, but thankfully, we […]
The Ripple: An Archival Retrospective
Guest post written by Carter Buckingham who has been volunteering in Special Collections since August 2024. Introduction I’m Carter and I have been volunteering with Special Collections for the last year to help catalogue the University’s student newspaper, the Ripple. My undergraduate background is in politics and international relations (Loughborough University), however I am hoping […]
Student placement in Special Collections, Week 1-2
Guest post written by Yi-Chen Su and Yongqin Huang, who are completing an eight week placement in Archives & Special Collections as part of their MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies . Yongqin Huang For our placement in Special Collections, my classmate and I were asked to complete an exhibition about the material culture […]
Archiving Richard III
In November 2023 I began a two-year project to bring together the digital records generated by the University relating to the discovery and identification of King Richard III, 2012-2015. The project aims to collect these records from across the institution and ensure their long-term preservation as part of the University Archive. The project was funded […]
Reflections on my Professional Fellowship: Part One
My name is Sarah Wood and I work as the Assistant Archivist for the University of Leicester. I am based in Archives & Special Collections and usually sat in the office adjacent to the Special Collections Reading Room (Library basement). Pop in and say hello if you are passing by! In November 2023 I was […]