Digital Library Spotlights

Welcome to The Sparrows' Nest, Nottingham

A couple of months ago, Iain McKay ran two very successful talks at Five Leaves Bookshop, entitled The Meaning of Anarchism, via twelve libertarians.

You may have noticed that we have massively expanded our catalogue and especially the Digital Library over the last couple of years. As we have now digitised large collections of long running papers, journals, magazines etc. we will start putting together articles dedicated to individual publications and subjects, shining a spotlight on some of these materials.

The first series of Anarchy, published between 1961 and 1970 by London based Freedom Press and edited by Colin Ward, is a popular, fascinating and beautiful highlight in our collections.

This month we are featuring something from the latest stash of documents added to the Digital Library. Documenting grassroots organisation against the revived arms race in the 1980s, this Nottingham CND Bulletin is fascinating for a number of reasons, not least as the wonderful hand drawn map on page two exemplifies how much work pre-demo route planning could be in the days before digital maps!

Nottingham CND Bulletin #?? (1986/01)

This month we added a lot of materials to the Digital Library. Please see below a full list of the eclectic mix, containing e.g. Punk Zines and heaps of great local(ish) materials. Prominent amongst the latter are long running LGBTQ+ papers and newssheets from the 1980s and 1990s as well as Nottingham CND materials from the 1980s, documenting e.g. blockades and other actions in and around the military bases in Chilwell and Molesworth.

  1. Document of the Month – Jan 2019
  2. New additions to the Digital Library - Jan 2019
  3. 10th anniversary of The Sparrows’ Nest
  4. Document of the Month – Nov-Dec 2018