Poets and Polymaths: Special Collections at the University of Sussex

Citation

Freeman, M. (2003), "Poets and Polymaths: Special Collections at the University of Sussex", New Library World, Vol. 104 No. 6, pp. 243-244. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2003.104.6.243.4

Locked away in our academic libraries are stunning unknown treasures the public rarely hears about – for instance, the University of Kent’s remarkable collection of cartoons, satires and lampoons.

Perhaps a greater public awareness of, and access to, these invaluable collections will come when we finally get our act together nationally on access and cooperation. This timely and fascinating illustrated Guide to the University of Sussex Library’s Special Collections gives some idea of the wealth and range of materials academic libraries hold for research and teaching purposes.

The span of the Library’s Special Collections is eclectic – the papers of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, for instance, forming part of the Bloomsbury Collection.

The little‐known, short‐lived, but politically significant Common Wealth Party archives are here, as are the collected papers of Rudyard Kipling – a rich mine of letters, proofs, memos, notebooks and drafts, providing an invaluable and key resource for biographers and literary historians.

The Mass Observation Archive is one of the University’s best known and distinctive collections – an incredibly rich and detailed resource for sociologists and social historians. The gifted comedy writers, Denis Norden and Frank Muir, gave over 600 scripts to the University Library to form a truly unique wealth of material on British comedy and popular culture in the twentieh century (remember “The Glums”?!).

Other surprising collections held by the Library are the New Statesman Archive, the small Noel Coward collection, the Sussex Poets Archive and the very fine and comprehensive Collection on the Paris Commune of 1871.

These wonderfully rich and disparate collections are well recorded in this book; well indexed and clearly laid out – a “must” for any library aiming to cover modern social, political, cultural and literary history and sociology. Neil Parkinson is to be congratulated on bringing these remarkable treasures into the profession’s gaze in this very readable and attractively produced guide.