Well, this is it. Six years ago we were interviewing prospective staff, moving new furniture into the office, finding out just how cold the Library tower gets in winter. Six years have, as usual, flown by, and this month we’ve completed the project. We will continue to catalogue as much as possible until Christmas, but then we will all be moving on to other things. So this will be our last post for the Tower Project blog. We started it so that we could share something of the sense of discovery as we explored what was in the tower. I’ve been lucky to have colleagues working on the project with the intelligence, judgement and curiosity to relate to the material, people who had plenty to say about it. We’ve been lucky to have academics and researchers who’ve unreservedly shared their time and knowledge to support the project. What started as office conversations turned into blog posts, sparked wider conversations and fed into conferences, teaching materials, and of course more books. I can’t think of anything more representative of what a university should be about. So this is the time to say thankyou to all of you who have contributed to the blog, we’ve really enjoyed talking to you!
Any future posts about the tower collections will be made on the Special Collections blog, and in fact from tomorrow and during December that blog will feature an Advent calendar with a different image from a Tower book on the theme of Victorian Christmas.
Best wishes, Vanessa Lacey
Thanks very much for all your posts – they’ve kept us entertained wonderfully!
Thank you for keeping this blog! It’s been funny, informative, poigniant and very delightful to follow! It will be missed.
I will really miss reading the blog posts – I always enjoyed learning from and laughing at them! Can’t believe the blog has been going for 2 years. Maybe you should publish it as Highlights from the Tower Project!
What an excellent idea, to publish the blog posts as a collection, that would be a delightful record of the rich variety of Tower material over the years. There is such obvious affection for the books in the blog posts, which inform and entertain, capturing as they do the charm, pathos, and quirkiness of this remarkable collection. The blog will be sorely missed.
It has been a delight to read the Tower Project blogs. Thank you all for the effort which has gone into these entertaining and informative pieces.
I am sorry that the project is now over, doubt we will we see the like again. Wonderful work done for future researchers.
The Tower Project blog might itself be important for future research. The material itself dates fom an earlier age, and research using it might represent a future age, so current interaction with those resources, response to them, inspiration from them, over 2011-2012, is also informative. I’m sorry there won’t be any more smart and entertaining entries arriving in my inbox, and indeed lovely pictures.
Good wishes to all the Tower Project Team,
A truly remarkable project, a really interesting blog. I have been referring to this blog when talking to folks about Blogging, as I found it very inspiriational. Wishing all those of the project team who are leaving us the best for their future!
Many thanks for your comments and to everyone who has emailed me since this was posted. It’s been a sad time with so many colleagues leaving but it’s helped to hear how much people value the project and that it will be missed. Comments on this blog are now closed