King's College Library, Cambridge

We have now published a second blog post celebrating the Lunar year of the horse. This time, the focus is on myth, legend and fiction. Enjoy!

Horses in fable, myth, story and legend Welcome to the second instalment of our celebration of the arrival of the Lunar year of the Horse. This time the focus is on depictions of mythological, legendary and fictional horses, of which the…

Dramatic view from the library office this afternoon!

To celebrate the impending Lunar New Year of the horse we bring you a new post on our special collections blog, with an equine theme. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Saddle up for the New Year! Given the importance of horses in human history we were inevitably spoilt for choice when it came to selecting equine-related images to celebrate the Lunar New Year of the Horse. What follows, ther…

Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today. To celebrate her sestercentennial, here's an online version of the exhibition we mounted in September for Open Cambridge. Enjoy!

Jane Austen at 250: An Online Exhibition Today, 16 December 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Events have been held throughout the year to celebrate this occasion. As part of Open Cambridge on 17 September, King’s …

Why not get December off to the best possible start with Gareth's bumper multimedia blog post looking at Kingsman Orlando Gibbons' music in various items from our Rowe Music Library!

A celebration of Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) This year at King’s we have been marking the 400th anniversary of the death of the composer Orlando Gibbons. Gibbons was born in Oxford in 1583 to a musical family who moved to Cambridge when…

We have now published the second of our railway themed blog posts. This focuses mainly on early train travel in the Lake District. Enjoy!

Victorian railway excursions In this second blog post marking 200 years of the modern railway, we focus mainly upon its arrival and early years in the Lake District, with a few other choice items from our collections making an…

The latest post on our special collections blog looks at the arrival of the railway in Cambridge, 180 years ago this year!

The railway arrives in Cambridge! This year marks both 200 years of the modern railway and the 180th anniversary of the opening of Cambridge Station on 29 July 1845. These anniversaries prompted us to search out and share some rai…

New on our special collections blog is an online version of a recent exhibition on the topic of moon exploration, including library items from the 16th to the 20th century. Features moving wheels, flying chariots and Meg and Mog!

Moon Exploration: An Online Exhibition We recently mounted a small exhibition on the subject of moon exploration, using items from our collections. In case you didn’t get to see it, here’s an online version of some of the exhibits. *** …

With Pride month beginning this weekend, we have put together a vibrant selection of books on our stand just inside the Library. These include recent acquisitions such as "Fluid: a guide for people with fluid sexuality" by Mark Cusack, "Q***r beyond London: LGBTQ stories from four English cities" by Matt Cook & Alison Oram, and "Q***r blues: the hidden figures of early blues music" by Darryl Bullock. Happy Pride everyone!

King's Library is looking particularly splendid today thanks to the work of the College's gardeners.

There's a new post on our special collections blog, an online version of an exhibition we put on for the Dante Futures conference held at King's last November. Highlights include early editions of Dante from our collections and a palimpsest, a 15th-century manuscript breviary that has passages of Dante's Inferno visible in places written in an earlier hand. Enjoy!

Dante: An Online Exhibition In November 2024 King’s College had the opportunity to host the annual doctoral and postdoctoral research conference “Dante Futures 2024: New Voices in the UK and Ireland”. For this occasion, an ex…