An award-winning play set in Keighley will have a special one-off charity performance this January.  Garlic Lane, by John Waddington-Feather, tells the story of a Saturday night before Christmas, before and after a rugby match.  The London premiere will be on 17 January 2010 at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, directed by playwright Glen Mortimer, and will benefit The Transplant Trust.

John’s papers form one of our archives of Yorkshire writers, and include many short stories set in Keighley and surroundings.

Students in 1969, from undergraduate prospectus.

A much-loved piece of the University of Bradford’s history is now available online for free.  The film, “Potential Graduate” was made by the Audio-Visual Unit between 1968 and 1970 to attract potential students.  It focuses on the new campus, and the range of sporting and social activities available to students.  It gives a wonderful insight into the University, the campus, student life, and how Bradford looked then.   Thanks to Heritage Lottery funding, the Yorkshire Film Archive is making this film available online, along with 21 hours of other fantastic footage from all over Yorkshire.

To see the film, search “Potential Graduate” on the YFA online project website.

Some of our hidden gems are having their chance to shine! Special Collections includes many rare books, journals, and maps e.g. a huge collection of J.B. Priestley’s works, thousands of rare volumes on radical politics, philosophy and esoterica collected by Dimitrije Mitrinovic, maps and rare books concerning Yorkshire, mining and Quakers gathered by Arthur Raistrick.

From "The cabinet of gems" / S. Batchelor. Knaresborough, 1840.

Now, thousands of our catalogue records have been added to COPAC, where they join 32 million other records from UK national, university and special libraries. COPAC, which is free to users, will raise awareness of our printed and map collections among academics, students, librarians and other interested people (it records over 500,000 search sessions per month).

Thanks to the Challenge Fund which enabled us to join COPAC, and to Bethan Ruddock at COPAC and Polly Dawes in the J.B. Priestley Library who have made it happen!

COPAC’s blog entry for this news.

The Yorkshire Journal, a new free e-journal for Yorkshire, aimed at all readers and writers interested in this great county.  The first issue covers Whitby jet, Mother Shipton’s Well, and Scarborough Spa.

I have just re-discovered The Modernist Journals Project, which will be very helpful to those interested in Mitrinovic, his circle, and the ideas of the time.  The Project aims to digitise and make freely available via the web important early 20th century magazines, I am most pleased to see New Age!  Other famous titles include Blast, and the English Review.  The site offers plenty of other useful resources including recent essays and books, and biographies of key individuals.  Full text of “The New Age under Orage” by Wallace Martin (1967)  is particularly welcome.

A note of caution in using this great site: the journals included are in the public domain under US law where the Project is based.  Material may still be in copyright elsewhere so check before download or other use!

The 2010 History Newsletter is now available, covering the research carried out by historians at the University of Bradford in the past year.  Special Collections is well represented by an article by Helen Roberts about the PaxCat Project, and a feature about the recent Darwin conference.  The newsletter also includes John Jackson on schools in 19th century Bradford, and Dr Martyn Housden on Hitler’s would-be assassin, plus lots of news about our staff and students of history.

Priestley Society Social : Alan’s Bit of a Do. The Bradford Club, Piece Hall Yard, Bradford. Friday 20 November 2009. 7pm. Social with buffet, followed by a talk by Alan Day.  Alan is the author of the incredibly useful bibliography of Priestley.  His talk will cover “Three days in the life of J.B. Priestley”, which apparently included “A military display, an all-star variety show, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a circus, treasure hunts, a fun-fair, concert parties, and baby and toddler shows”!  Society members will have full details in their latest mailing.  For more information about the Society, see the Priestley Society website (now back up and running after recent downtime).

The new season of the Stephen Daldry production of Priestley’s An Inspector Calls has been extended: Wyndham’s Theatre, London. 3 December 2009-20 March 2010. See the An Inspector Calls website for details.

The Autumn 2009 issue of our e-newsletter Special Collections News is now available, including several stories first glimpsed on this blog.

• JBP delights again.
• Darwin in Bradford.
• New Atlantis preserved: part 2.
• Ephemera forever.
• Dales icons.
• 1930s PR for Priestley.

What has a 1970s guide to Bolton Abbey

in common with a scrapbook of 1980s press cuttings about anti-nuclear activities in Cambridge?

They are part of our new collections of ephemera.  Such items can be fascinating and important primary historical sources and link us directly to the ideas and opinions of their creators in a way that more formal documents may not do.  This is particularly true of pressure groups such as those campaigning for nuclear disarmament, who use leaflets, posters and other informal sources to reach out and spread their message.

Some of our ephemera belongs to individual archives, for instance, the J.B. Priestley Archive is rich in programmes, playbills and posters for performances of Priestley plays.  But much of it does not fit into a particular archive, so we have decided to create distinct ephemera collections for key subject areas:

PEACE.  Organised using the Commonweal classification (ref: Eph PAC).  Mainly relating to nuclear disarmament campaigning in the UK, 1980s camps at Molesworth and Greenham, but all sorts of other interesting items are appearing.  Supplementing our extensive peace-related collections of books and archives.

YORKSHIRE, particularly our special interests, the Dales and the West Riding. (ref: Eph YOR). Organised by Dale or town.  Guides to towns, walks or caves, the story of a holiday cottage in Dentdale, mini maps.  Supplementing our Yorkshire collections.

Former YUGOSLAVIA and the Balkans (ref: Eph YUG). Historically, the University has had close links with this region, and the Library specialises in its social and economic history.  Hence interesting materials will come our way!  The first chunk is a collection of manifestos and other papers relating to elections in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.