Book and Plant Sale, Sat 14th May 2016
Shakespeare 400
Free Library Tours
Join Dawn or Linda on Friday afternoons at 2pm for a free tour of the Morrab Library.
Explore the nooks and crannies of Morrab House and learn a little of the history of our wonderful Library.
World Book Night 2016
We’re celebrating World Book Night on Saturday 23rd April at the Morrab Library with a coffee morning. Join us for refreshments in the Reading Room from 10am – 12 noon and pick up a free copy of ‘Treachery‘ by S.J. Parris, our World Book Night giveaway.
Hope to see you!
Cleaning and repackaging the Stanley Opie archaeology collection
Back in November we announced that we had received a grant from Cornwall Heritage Trust to begin a programme of conservation, digitisation and dissemination of the Stanley Opie collection of archaeology photographs. After a delay while we awaited restocking and delivery of the necessary materials from our conservation supplier, the project has now begun.
Repackaging glass negatives
The collection of about 1,000 quarter-plate glass negatives (plus a few acetate negatives and positive prints) is being cleaned and repackaged in batches of 50. Each glass plate must first be removed from the old folded card slip, then be inspected. If in a stable condition the glass side is then cleaned with distilled water and a conservation-grade microfibre cloth, before being lightly brushed to remove any loose dust on the emulsion side. Most of the slides are fairly dirty (residue from development, mould from storage), and the difference before and after cleaning is significant. This will mean clearer digitised images, and provide more stability for long term storage of the negative.
The cleaned negative is then placed into a new cruciform negative enclosure. These arrive flat and we must first number and fold them in batches before cleaning commences. The negative in its new enclosure is then placed into a larger box that can accommodate forty of them. The box is then labelled with the collection name and number range contained within.
Each box of negatives is then carefully digitised and the scan is attached to the corresponding record in our photographic database.
This database will soon be available online, and you will be able to browse Stanley Opie’s wonderful and largely unseen photos of Cornwall’s heritage as seen from the 1920s-50s. We plan on releasing regular updates to the database, adding recently digitised images to their catalogue entries.
We are very grateful to Cornwall Heritage Trust for enabling us to undertake this project.
The old cardboard slips and a new glass negative enclosure
Bric-a-Brac & Book Sale!
Winter Lecture Series Update: Wednesday 9th March
WINTER LECTURE SERIES UPDATE – Wednesday 9th March, 2pm
The scheduled talk from Dan Garside on Africa & Books has been cancelled.
Alternatively, Professor John Dancy will be giving a talk on The Normandy Campaign and the Legion D’Honneur.
Free admission – donations gratefully received.
Refreshments will be available after the lecture.
Easter Weekend
Please note that the Library will be closed for the Easter weekend from 4pm on Thursday 24th of March and will be open again on Tuesday the 29th of March at 10am.
The Improbability of Love
Every painting has a story –and if it could speak, what would it tell us?
Hannah Rothschild, writer, film director and Chair of the National Gallery’s first novel. This absolutely beautiful hardback was published by Bloomsbury last year and is now available at the library.
Impishly wicked, ruthlessly frank, touchingly percipient and sometimes laugh aloud funny to boot. Hannah Rothschild captures the contradiction between art as money and art as the soul of humanity really well. – Rachel Campbell-Johnston, Art Critic for The Times
Morrab Library volunteer Pat Boddy’s thoughts –
A fascinating and wonderfully descriptive book with an intricate plot and very colourful characters. I really enjoyed it.
The Fishermen -Chigozie Obioma
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this tale of Nigeria in the 1990s is a mighty fry-up of pop-culture, fable and verbal invention… -Click here for the full review in the New Statesman***
A short review by Morrab Library and book selection committee member, Pamela Priske-
Four sons of a Nigerian father who has the highest hopes for each of them -‘professor’, ‘government minister’, etc. are confronted by a village madman prophesying violence and death for the brothers. This story is a metonymy for Nigeria’s promise, undermined by superstition and corruption. A grim, but rewarding, read.