In celebration of the International Archives Day, we’re pleased to unveil a display of mementos collected from our very own archives here at Augustine House Library to reminisce on the 61 year history of Canterbury Christ Church University.

CCCU has come a long way from where it began, growing and evolving from a teacher training college to a fully fledged university. We may still be a relatively young university, but we understand the value of history to any institution, and so we’ve kept the memory of the past alive in our archives through a time capsule of keepsakes from our earliest days, even before the university’s opening.

What’s on display?

Here are a few of the items we’ve got on display for you this year:

61 years of curriculums and advertisements, agendas and newspapers, photos and stories have been gathered for your perusal on the Ground Floor here at Augustine House. And if you’d like to see more of what remains behind the scenes, email library.canterbury@canterbury.ac.uk to request an appointment to tour the archive.

To find out more about what we have on offer, click here for a quick and easy introduction to our collections.

And if you’d like to look at digital archives from all over Britain, click here to visit our Wakelet!

How can you get involved?

We’re always on the lookout for helpful students to assist with the photography, research and inventory, so that we can share our archive with the community through blogs and social media posts. Volunteering in the archives is a fantastic opportunity to have history at your fingertips.

So if you’d like to join in with the University Archives and Special Collections, just contact our Learning and Research Librarian at michelle.crowther1@canterbury.ac.uk to express your interest in becoming one of our student volunteers!