What better way to start Thursday's #Explore Your Archive Day 4 than with #throwback. It's almost as if they'd planned it to coincide with #ThrowbackThursday! Similar to the time theme, in an archive we're just spoiled for choice. Everywhere you look it's throwback! However, one should not take this privilege for granted, it is important to 'remember the lessons of the past'.
David
For this theme, I've chosen the 'famous' De Montfort University television advertisement which used footage from the 1990 BBC nature documentary The Tials of Life presented by David Attenborough. The idea being that an education at DMU would help you escape killer whales, no, I mean, prepare you for the competitive world of work! This was also the very first thing I digitised while working in Special Collections and I'm particularly interested in the challenges surrounding the management of digital collections.
You can watch the full video here and on YouTube as part of our Friday Favourites series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDGekjv0g2s
Katharine
This illustration is really significant to our understanding of how the buildings on DMU campus have changed over the years. Here we can see how the 14th century Chantry house (situated on the corner opposite Trinity House) once had three stories (it now has one). And the Portland Building next to it was once home to Leicester shoe manufacturer Portland Shoe. At one time, Portland Shoe owned both buildings and the Chantry House was used as a leather store before both were bought and carefully restored by DMU in the 1990s.
From BR/1 'To Beauty Feet First' Portland Shoes Brochure https://de-montfort.epexio.com/admin/#/catalogues/demontfort/descriptions/BR/1
Marina
New to Leicester, the city seems to me full of buildings and little pockets brimming with past lives. Stephen Butt's book, Leicester Through Time (2009), explores parts of the city that have been reborn while while reflecting on how sites used to exist. The image below illustrates how student accommodation has taken over this old brewery in Southgate. If inside it still smells of hops, it might be fun to pretend it is from Everard's ale rather than the current students!
Above: Library Catalogue Reference: LC 942.542 BUT
Natalie
Having recently written about the history of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) at DMU, the first thing that sprang to mind for this theme was the striking difference between how the majority of us now share our space with computers in contrast to the purpose and size of early computers. Below is an image of a computing class taking place in a purpose-built lab with Honeywell computers lining the walls, alongside a colour image of the Honeywell. As you can see, your average Honeywell in 1967 was the size of an adult human!
This seems quite striking if we think about how computer usage quickly moved to a communal setting over the course of 15 years, with individual stations provided by most faculties and libraries offering computer access for students to assist learning and study.
Above: Kimberlin Library computing floor, 1990s. For more images on DMU classes see: https://specialcollections.catalogue.dmu.ac.uk/records/D/034
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