Our events for the 2025 - 26 season (running from September-July) are listed below. Attendees will be sent joining instructions prior to the meeting.
If you have any event suggestions, please email the committee camlibgroup@gmail.com
Upcoming events:
Tuesday 5 May: Graduate Trainee Talk
Thursday 4 June: Living Water Exhibition: curator talk at Pembroke College
Wednesday 29 July: Talk and Tour of A G Leventis Library with Ellen Woolf
Wednesday 24th September: Tour of Parker Library, 4-5pm
Join CLG for a tour of the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College. The Parker Library is one of the greatest national heritage treasures. It is internationally renowned for its important collection of medieval and renaissance manuscripts, as well as its valuable holdings of early printed books. It is one of the most significant surviving renaissance libraries in Europe.There will be an introduction to Matthew Parker, his career and book-collecting habits, and discussion about his donation of his library to Corpus Christi College. This will be followed by a short introduction to the current exhibition that focuses on Making Medieval Manuscripts, and the stages of labour required to produce a single book. A sneak preview is available on https://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/making-medieval-manuscripts!
Following the visit, we are planning continue on to a nearby pub. If you are unable to make the visit but would like to come to the pub only, please email camlibgroup@gmail.com.
Time & location: Meet outside the Corpus Christi College Porter's Lodge at 15:50. The tour will take place from 16:00-17:00
Accessibility: Tours are not suitable for wheelchairs users. Participants must be able to walk 25 steps of uneven stairs.
The tour is limited to 20 spaces
Thursday 9th October: AGM and talk; Between Books and Chatbots: Empowering Academic Librarians to Lead AI Literacy Conversations by Alberto Garcia at Murray Edwards College.
Join CLG for our annual AGM followed, by a talk from Alberto Garcia. Alberto Garcia serves as Librarian for Murray Edwards College and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE). His work centers on developing AI literacy among students, researchers, and librarians, while advocating for greater librarian engagement in AI policy discussions in higher education. Alberto also supports students and researchers in developing sustainable writing practices through weekly writing sessions and termly writing retreats.
With the advent of Chat GPT, the plethora of large language models and seemingly endless updates promising greater capabilities and near PhD-level intelligence, the last few years have created an interesting paradox for academic librarians. On one hand, academic librarians are perhaps one of the more suitably placed professionals to deliver sessions and lead programs on AI literacy, not only due to developed information literacy frameworks but decades-long experience in delivering information, digital, and media literacy sessions (Hervieux & Wheatley, 2024; Miltenoff, 2024). On the other hand, despite this seemingly natural fit, academic librarians, in large part, have been hesitant to engage with stakeholders in higher education in advocating for AI literacy, citing a lack of expertise and a scarcity of training opportunities at their institutions (Clarivate, 2024). This hesitancy has often led to academic librarians being excluded from conversations “In the room where it happens”, or spaces in academia where policy discussions occur regarding generative AI in higher education (Brandon et al., 2025).
This presentation will discuss why librarians should be engaged in discussions surrounding generative AI in higher education, arguing that librarians are not only uniquely placed but particularly equipped to rise to this occasion. This presentation will also share a practical exercise attendees can use to facilitate discussions with stakeholders at their libraries and ways in which attendees can develop their AI literacy skills.
Time 5.30pm for a 5.45pm start for the AGM. Talk starts at 6.15pm.
Thursday 20th November: Enabling Accessibility in Libraries (online)
1 in 4 people in the UK are disabled and now more than ever it's imperative that libraries are accessible to everyone, especially those marginalised and most vulnerable.
Lara Marshall, RNIB Libraries Engagement Manager, talks about practical ways you can make your physical space, stock and interactions with blind and partially sighted customers as enriching and accessible as possible.
Time 5.45pm for a 6pm start, online via Microsoft Teams.
18th December: CLG Meal at CRC
CLG Members are invited to a Christmas Meal at The Park, CRC at 6.30pm.
Numbers are limited and more information, including booking will follow.
Wednesday 7th January: Twelfth Night at CUP bookshop
Join us at the Cambridge University Press Bookshop for a Twelfth Night Celebration. An opportunity to browse the bookshop, catch up with colleagues and friends and get the new year off to a great start!
Light refreshments will be provided so please inform us of any dietary requirements.
Thursday 19th February: Tour of Clare College Library and Fellows' Library
Join us for a tour of Clare College Library and a visit to the Fellows' Library, a very rare opportunity, as the college celebrates its 700th anniversary in 2026.
There will be a tour of the Forbes Mellon Library, followed by a short walk crossing Queens Road and walking down 'The Avenue" for a tour of the Fellows' Library where there will be an exhibition and introduction by Dr Tim Chesters.
The tour starts at 5.30pm sharp at the Forbes Mellon Library, access via Porter's Lodge on Queens' Road (no access from University Library entrance), ending around 6.30-6.45pm.
There is a limit of numbers due to space in the Fellows' Library, maximum 25 and this is a members only event - a waiting list will operate if interest exceeds places available.
If you require information on accessibility access to the venue, please contact a member of the Committee.
Thursday 26 March: The All England Lawn Tennis Club Library & Archive, Wimbledon (online)
Time: 5.45pm for a 6pm start, online via Microsoft Teams
Robert McNicol is the Club Historian at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon. He studied History at the University of Glasgow and Information & Library Studies at the University of Strathclyde. In 2016 he moved to Wimbledon to become the Librarian of the Kenneth Ritchie Wimbledon Library, before being appointed the All England Club’s first full-time Club Historian in 2023.
The Kenneth Ritchie Wimbledon Library is part of Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and was founded in 1977. The Library holds the world’s most outstanding collection of tennis publications, including books, annuals, periodicals, programmes and newspaper cuttings. The Library also holds a large archive collection relating to the All England Club and other tennis organisations. More than 90 different countries are represented in the collection and the Library hosts researchers from around the world, both during The Championships and year-round.
Robert’s talk will cover the history of the Museum and Library, how the collections have grown over the years and how they are used today.
This is a joint event with the Cambridge Archivists Group.
Tuesday 28 April: CLG pub quiz at the Maypole
Put your knowledge to the test with a CLG pub quiz! The quiz will be held in the ground floor room at the Maypole Freehouse.
Arrive from 5.45 pm; please be seated by 6.10 pm.
Tuesday 5 May: Graduate Trainee Talk
Graduate Traineeships are one-year fixed term training posts intended to provide valuable work experience prior to pursuing an optional postgraduate qualification in Library and Information Studies. Part of a cohort of 6, the Cambridge trainees are based at different college libraries but have a shared programme of visits throughout the year to introduce them to different areas of librarianship and help them consider their future career. You can read about some of their visits on their blog.
Join CLG to listen to the trainees talk about their individual responsibilities and projects, reflect on their experience so far, and share their future plans, followed by a Q&A.
In-person, 5:30pm for a 5:45pm start, at the Faculty of Law, Sidgwick Site.
Thursday 4 June: Living Water at Pembroke College - talk by Dr Mark Wormald, curator of the Exhibition and Fellow Librarian at Pembroke College.
Living Water: Poetry, Art and the Fight for Clean Rivers is a major exhibition held in partnership between the UL and Pembroke College. It explores the extraordinary creative relationship sustained by the expressionist Anglo-Irish artist Barrie Cooke, and his circle of friends, among them the two great 20th-century poets, Seamus Heaney and Pembroke alumnus Ted Hughes.
At Pembroke College, visitors can discover where all this began, in Barrie Cooke’s early years in the West of Ireland: his fascination with a primitive stone carving, to which Heaney and Hughes responded in their poems; wonderfully vivid lithographs and sketches recording Cooke and Hughes’s shared passion for Irish pike; and rare insights into the curious and compelling fusion of fish and family in Cooke’s imagination. You’ll see unpublished letters and poems by Hughes and Heaney, artworks by Barrie Cooke never before exhibited in the UK, and Ted Hughes’s own fishing rods. This exhibition tells of a fascination for nature, the vital importance of living water, and the shared landscapes that united these seminal figures.
We will hear about the objects on display, how the extraordinary Barrie Cooke Archive found a home at Pembroke College, as well as the challenges in curating an exhibition of modern art and writing.
This event will not involve visiting the UL; attendees may wish to visit the UL part of the exhibition in advance, but it is not necessary to have done so. The exhibition includes sexually explicit materials.
Members only; limited to 20 spaces
In-person, meet from 5.30pm for a 5.45pm start. Meeting place: outside the Porter's Lodge at Pembroke College
Wednesday 29th July - Talk and Tour of A G Leventis Library with Ellen Woolf
Join us for a tour and talk at the A G Leventis Library.
Time TBC
