Living disability, collecting and researching it academically

Meggie Boyle is a 3^rd year student of French in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Literature and Linguistics. Earlier this year, she got in touch with us at Cambridge University Libraries with book recommendations for her Year Abroad Dissertation project. She suggested titles that we did not have, and we arranged digital alternate formats for books that were only available to buy in print format, via the Cambridge Libraries Accessibility Services. You can read here about her experience of disability which fueled her dissertation project.

“Disability has dominated my life, not only pervading every part of my physical body, but also seeping into the very core of my being, my mind: I see it in everything I do and everywhere I go.

MMLL Faculty Library’s oldest Ukrainian book

This week, I thought it would be nice to look outside the main University Library for Ukrainian printed books, and the Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Faculty Library was the obvious first place to look at.

The title page of the book, with a photograph of its late author.

Preaching what we practise

In late 2017, our department started to produce termly newsletters about our acquisitions work, and the latest newsletter – for Michaelmas 2018, also covering the summer and Christmas breaks – has just been put online.  The idea for the newsletter came from discussions with faculty librarians.  What we in Collections and Academic Liaison (CAL) do in terms of selecting and acquiring books was not always well understood, and our faculty colleagues agreed that a regular newsletter which shed light on the kinds of things we buy would be welcome.  While the newsletter is written primarily for a library audience, readers are also welcome to look at it.  All four newsletters produced so far are now publicly available on CAL’s public webpage.

Film in Cambridge

Part of the cinema section in the MML Library

Film is an ever popular subject, and as such it is hardly any surprise that Film Studies are flourishing. Modules and courses on film have been taught at Cambridge University since the 1970s, but with the beginning of this academic year, the Modern and Medieval Languages Faculty (MML) also offers the possibility of gaining a PhD in the subject. To reflect the offer of a PhD in Film and Screen Studies, the long-standing MPhil in Screen and Media Cultures has also been renamed to match the title of the PhD programme. In addition, the Centre for Film and Screen is also based in the MML Faculty, with John David Rhodes as its director. However, film is not exclusively taught at the MML Faculty, but for example also across programmes in English, Architecture and Art History. As a consequence, several Faculty libraries as well as College libraries actively collect films, while the main University Library itself does not.