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| Cambridgeshire Collection | |
|---|---|
| Name | Cambridgeshire Collection |
| Country | England |
| Location | Cambridge |
| Established | 19th century |
| Type | Local and family history library |
| Items collected | Books, newspapers, maps, photographs, pamphlets, electoral registers, directories |
| Director | Cambridgeshire County Council |
| Website | Cambridgeshire County Council libraries |
Cambridgeshire Collection The Cambridgeshire Collection is a specialised local and family history resource in Cambridge, England, housing printed and archival materials relating to Cambridge (city), Cambridgeshire, and the historic county of Huntingdonshire. It supports research into local biography, urban development, transportation, architecture, and genealogy, serving users from University of Cambridge scholars to community historians and family researchers tracing links to figures such as Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Pepys, E. M. Forster, John Harvard, and Charles Darwin. The Collection complements broader repositories including the Cambridge University Library and the Cambridgeshire Archives, while intersecting with municipal and national networks such as the British Library and the National Archives (United Kingdom).
The Collection traces its origins to 19th-century civic initiatives in Cambridge (city), deriving material from early municipal libraries, subscription libraries, and antiquarian societies like the Cambridgeshire Antiquarian Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London. During the Victorian era collections expanded as local historians documented sites such as Ely Cathedral, Peterborough Cathedral, and the Fenland parishes around Wisbech and March. In the 20th century the Collection absorbed private deposits from collectors associated with institutions including King's College, Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and it evolved alongside county-level services administered by Cambridgeshire County Council and the former Cambridgeshire County Library Service. Post-war preservation activities incorporated printed ephemera, electoral registers, and directories documenting figures from Lord Protector era families to 20th-century innovators linked to Anglo-French and Anglo-American exchanges. More recently digitisation partnerships have aligned the Collection with projects at the Wellcome Trust, Historic England, and regional university-led digitisation initiatives.
The Collection comprises local studies material: monographs, serials, nineteenth-century newspapers, trade directories, maps, plans, and photographic archives documenting urban and rural change in places such as Cambridge (city), Huntingdon, St Ives, Newmarket, Saffron Walden, and the Fens. Printed works include local histories about Ely, cartographic series including Ordnance Survey sheets, and directories like those published by Kelly's Directory and Pigot's Directory. The newspaper runs encompass titles that reported on events from the Peterloo Massacre-era social debates to twentieth-century municipal reforms, and the Collection holds pamphlets and broadsides relating to campaigns around infrastructure projects such as the A14 road improvements and river management schemes on the River Great Ouse. Genealogical resources include parish registers, census indexes, and electoral registers referencing families tied to personalities like Horace Gray, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and local benefactors recorded in college and parish records. Visual materials include cartes-de-visite and glass-plate negatives depicting architecture from King's Parade to industrial sites in Ely, while cartographic holdings chart fen drainage schemes, railway expansion with lines to St Ives (Cambridgeshire) railway station and Newmarket (racecourse), and wartime defences recorded during the Second World War. The Collection also preserves ephemeral items such as trade tokens, programme sheets for performances at venues like the Cambridge Corn Exchange, and civic reports tied to the Cambridge City Council’s planning records.
The Collection offers on-site consultation, reproduction services, and searchroom access for academic researchers, family historians, journalists, and community groups. Readers consult catalogues managed in partnership with the Online Computer Library Center standards and county metadata frameworks used by the Local Studies Libraries Network and national cataloguing initiatives led by the British Library. Staff provide enquiry services, workshops in palaeography and local history research methods, and outreach sessions for schools and societies such as the Cambridge Labour History Society and the Cambridgeshire Family History Society. Special access arrangements support users consulting fragile material from holdings connected to figures like John Milton, Ralph Waldo Emerson (via correspondence holdings), and local industrialists; bookings for rare-item consultation and copying comply with conservation guidance from Historic England and professional practice promoted by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
Housed within a civic library building near central Cambridge (city), the Collection is colocated with public library services and reading rooms servicing university and non-university users alike. Facilities include climate-controlled strongrooms for photographic and map collections, microfilm readers for nineteenth- and twentieth-century newspapers, digitisation workstations compliant with standards used by Jisc and the Digital Preservation Coalition, and accessible study spaces for group visits by organisations such as Cambridge University Press affiliates and local schools. The site provides proximity to transport links for researchers arriving via Cambridge railway station and road connections to county towns including Huntingdon and Newmarket.
Administered under the auspices of Cambridgeshire County Council and coordinated with the Cambridgeshire Archives service, the Collection operates through partnerships with academic institutions including the University of Cambridge, county heritage bodies such as Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record, and national funders like the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Collaborative projects have connected the Collection with digitisation and exhibition initiatives involving the Museum of Cambridge, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and conservation programmes run with Historic England and university conservation departments. Governance follows policies set by local authority cultural strategies and professional standards advocated by the Society of Archivists and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, while volunteers and Friends groups augment public programming and cataloguing efforts linked to regional networks such as the Cambridgeshire Local History Council.
Category:Libraries in Cambridgeshire