Manuscript or muniment?

The archive collections contain unique materials in many different formats, covering a wide range of subjects and a time span of two millennia. The archives are held in either the manuscript collection or the muniment collection.

The easiest way of determining whether an item is manuscript or muniment is to consider whether it would have been created by the University. This includes:

• senate minutes
• matriculation and graduation records
• titles for University properties
• administrative files
• records of students and staff
• financial records. 

All other archival material can be found within the manuscript collection. Papers from academic departments and research papers of staff members of the University are considered to be manuscripts and can be found in personal papers, or under the name of the relevant subject such as Botany and Chemistry Department papers.

The archives team includes specialists in both collections, and in the preservation and interpretation of both analogue and digital materials. Records for both collections are included in the archives search.