The University of Reading Special Collections houses rare books, archives, and manuscripts, and two of the collections are designated under Arts Council England’s Designation Scheme. Most donations stem from a long-standing tradition of acquiring special materials, with the Overstone Library bequest in 1920 setting the pattern. They are situated within the wider Museums and Collections Department, within the University’s Research and Innovation directorate.
As the collections are so varied, there are ample opportunities to explore digital solutions to research questions, all while being supported by a dedicated team of experts, many of whom are engaged in efforts to make materials more accessible through public engagement projects.
We welcome queries, ideas and discussions about how you could embed both digital humanities and the data from Special Collections into your project.
Special Collections and the Digital Humanities Hub
Museums and Collections at the University of Reading are a long-established partner of the Digital Humanities Hub, represented within the Hub team and collaborating on training, events, and research support. This has involved work on digital scholarship and, increasingly, on collections, both physical and digital.
The Hub supports Museums and Collections in their efforts to make research sustainable and make use of internal infrastructure. Staff have engaged with digital humanities in various ways, and Special Collections is therefore perfectly situated to provide researchers with fascinating materials to work with.
Accessing Special Collections
Most collections can be accessed and viewed in the Reading Room, located in the same building as the Museum of English Rural Life, adjacent to the London Road Campus. Bookings to view collections should be made in advance to ensure that researchers have the materials that they need.
Keep in Touch
For more information regarding Special Collections, visit their website or contact Sharon.
To stay updated about current projects, news and events, follow Special Collections on LinkedIn.
Meet an Archivist and Discuss your Project
Sharon Maxwell
Contact Details:
Email: s.maxwell@reading.ac.uk Telephone: 0118 378 8660
Sharon Maxwell is an archivist with responsibility for leading on cataloguing and collections-based projects for the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) archive and the University of Reading Special Collections. Sharon convenes the Systems & Infrastructure Group and Cataloguing meetings. Sharon is currently contributing to the Relocating Filmstrips, Remapping Europe project, led by University of St Andrews. Previous research project contributions include cataloguing the photographs and digital content on the Legacy of Stephen Dwoskin project and Critical Cataloguing for Digital Preservation, led by University of Southampton.
Sharon is the Museums & Collections representative on the Digital Humanities Hub Team and has twice attended the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School for Linked Open Data (2022) and AI in the Library (2025).
Sharon’s broad professional and research interests include visualisation and access to catalogue metadata, digital preservation, creation of classification schemes, archival utilisation within digital humanities scholarship, the preservation and cataloguing of filmstrips and records of early higher education institutions. Sharon is a committee member of the Higher Education Archive Programme (HEAP) and the Group for Literary Archives and Manuscripts (GLAM).
Digital Humanities Projects
The formation of the new Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Digital Humanities, combined with the ongoing support of the Digital Humanities Hub, has provided new opportunities for collaboration with our specialised internal partners.
The Digital Humanities Officer is happy to meet with researchers who are considering using Special Collections for a project or research proposal. This includes PhD students.
In the 2026-27 academic year, the IDRC DH plans to expand its provision and is considering the logistics of developing a new collaborative fellowship between collections and DH. More information will be provided in due course.