CLG are pleased to share our next quarterly wrap up which highlights our events held from January to April 2026.
January: Twelfth Night at CUP Bookshop
To kick off the New Year, CLG members were invited to our annual Twelfth Night event at the CUP bookshop. Members enjoyed the opportunity to chat over nibbles and wine, whilst browsing the bookshop after hours.
We're incredibly grateful for the CUP bookshop staff giving up their time to allow us to enjoy this evening.
Contributed by Katherine Burchell
February: Tour of Clare College Library and Fellows' Library
When you get to visit the old and the new in a college that you have never been into you know you are going to get to see very different ways of not only engaging with students but showing off the very impressive collections that colleges often have.
And Clare was certainly not one to disappoint.
The newer of the two libraries we were to visit, the Forbes Mellon Library, is now 40 years old but it has the impact of being a supportive work and study space with facilities and posters as soon as you step through the door and once you are into the main room you can see the way that space and seating was designed to make the most of what students need with a large amount of seating with a wonderful layout of shelving but so much space above you rather than a tight restrictive environment.
Being shown round by the staff is always a great way to see and hear about the actual elements of the jobs that we know from our own locations and so getting ideas from colleagues being that sharing information, different forms of signage and chairs or promotion of events is always most welcome.
After leaving the Forbes Mellon we walked in the dark over Queens Road, down The Avenue and into the older college buildings and through the dark wooden rooms into the Fellows Library. Designed in 1792 and only recently refurbished it is exactly what you would expect a serious collection in a college to be. But we were very lucky indeed to have Dr Tim Chesters, the Fellow's Librarian and our guide to the wonders that Clare had to offer. He is an Associate Professor of Early Modern French but with the knowledge and love he has for the contents of the Library, you'd think that he had always been a Librarian and had been in situ for a very long time indeed.
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| Photos contributed by Katherine Burchall |
With cabinets showing off some of their treasures such as the earliest printed Latin translation of the Quran from 1543, a treatise on head wounds from 1616 along with diagrams for trepanning and of course a first edition copy of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica from 1687. These are a wonder to see and a tiny amount of what the library has to offer.
Even upon leaving, in the room next door, was an armoured iron bound loan chest from 1390-1420 that would most likely have been the original version of the College library back in the Middle Ages.
It is this sort of thing that makes the CLG eminently important to join as we have been lucky enough to see so many things that are hidden behind those places we always walk past but never get to enter.
Contributed by Kevin Symonds
March: The All England Lawn Tennis Club Library & Archive, Wimbledon
To read about our first joint event with the Cambridge Archivists Group, Lizzy Ennion-Smith has kindly shared her blog post for Cambridge Library Group to enjoy: https://cambridgearchivistsgroup.wordpress.com/2026/04/14/the-all-england-lawn-tennis-club-library-archive-wimbledon/
April: Pub Quiz
In April, CLG hosted their first in-person quiz. The rounds were varied and covered film and television, books, music, geography, and pop culture. Sadly, despite our professions, our team weren't as successful in the books round as we'd hoped! It was a really fun evening and Natalie, fellow CLG committee member, was a fantastic quiz master. A particular highlight was the music round which consisted of Natalie playing her ukulele and then asking us to guess the artist and song title. It definitely brought out all of our competitive sides!
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| The winning team! |
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| Photos contributed by Natalie Kent |
A huge thank you to the Maypole for hosting us and for providing such a delicious array of food and drinks throughout the evening.
Contributed by Lily Swain
