Assemblage

Ask anyone who has been fortunate enough to work with cultural collections, and they will tell you how mercurial they can be: constantly evolving and changing. Each new acquisition adds fresh layers of meaning, each entering into a dialogue with its precursors, prompting re-interpretation, re-evaluation, growth.

Though they were only brought together in 2018, the University’s Archives and Special Collections have been growing steadily since the 1950s, to the point that it’s easier to measure them in distance than by the number of objects. Stretched end-to-end, our collections measure close to 30 kilometers, and range from eleventh century manuscripts to twenty-first century digital documents.

But while the number of objects in our care is enormous, it’s not just their breadth, age, or rarity that makes them so valuable, it’s their accessibility.

Assemblage represents only a very small portion of the material we have recently acquired, examples that have excited and fascinated our curators and archivists. The rest of our collections are waiting for you to discover, available on request through our Reading Room. Our repositories represent a wealth of history, culture and memory, the richness and complexity of which can only be understood in full by experiencing it in person.

When we collect new material, we do so not just because of what it represents, but because of what it can achieve. Rich though they are, our Archives and Special Collections aren’t simply a treasure to be hoarded. What we have assembled here, and throughout our collections, are tools - ready for you to use in furthering your own research, expressing your own stories, and adding your voice to an ongoing conversation.

Assemblage: Recent Acquisitions from the Archives and Special Collections is on display in the Noel Shaw Gallery, Level 1, Baillieu Library from  Monday 5 August to June 2025.