Our History:About

Since its inception in 1582, the university as it was and as it is today, is linked by one continual thread – people. Our success, achievements and development are a result of successive generations of students, academics and other staff who have come together in a myriad of combinations. Some of these people are well-known, some less so; others are now completely obscured to us. The history of the University is their story.

Understanding these people requires them to be placed in context, the context of their time and those with whom they were interacting. While events alone can appear abstract, contextualising them by surfacing information on the people involved allows for engagement with a wide and diverse audience, both in the historical period and the present.

Using the same methodology as Wikipedia, this project will both create pages of content and also a wish list of pages to be created in the future. It is hoped to extend content creators beyond the dedicated project team at a later date.

The project is in its initial 6 month phase. We hope to secure further funding to allow it to continue beyond this. Over and above project created content, this resource will be added to by a wider group of staff who interact with our collections as part of other core and project work.

Project team

Project Officer: Paul Barnaby, Assistant Librarian

Project Manager: Grant Buttars, Deputy University Archivist

Student Volunteer: Ellie Williams (preliminary research, complete)

Technical Support: Ianthe Sutherland (for Library Digital Development team)

Contact us via the Centre for Research Collections [1]