In October 2016, Queens' College Library participated for the first time in the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. For this occasion, the Library opened its door to the public and offered the visitors to discover the then current exhibition 'In Praise of Erasmus: an exhibition to mark the 500 years since the publication of his New Testament'.

In addition to have opened the exhibition for two weeks, the Old Library organised a specual 'Erasmus Day' on Saturday 29 October.

Erasmus Day

On Saturday morning, the Old LIbrary organised, in collaboration with the Cambridge Colleges' Conservation Consortium (CCCC), two workshops on bookbindings in Tudor Cambridge.

People of all ages were invited to discover how 16th century bookbindings were made, from the sewing to the decoration (tooling). This workshop highlighted the work of local binder and Erasmus associate Garrett Godfrey (ca. 1527-33) and offered a display of his finest bindings. It also gave visitors a chance to step into Godfrey’s shoes and try their hand at sewing and tooling.

From left to right:

College Librarian Tim Eggington welcomed visitors in the Old Library and showed them some of our finest Tudor bindings.

Bridget Warrington, Head Conservator, explained the different steps to create a fine binding and showed the conservation work in progress on one of our books.

From left to right:

Rare Books Cataloguer Lucille Munoz explained how to sew the textblock.

Hayley McLellan, Library Graduate Trainee, demonstrated how to sew headbands.

In the afternoon, the Old Library hosted in the Munro Room two talks by two Queens’ scholars, Dr Andrew Zurcher and Prof. Richard Rex, which explored different aspects of Erasmus’ contribution to humanist thought in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the publication of Erasmus’ ground-breaking edition of the New Testament, on which he worked while staying at Queens’ College between 1511 and 1514.