Collections, libraries and museums
Photo © Martin Bond
Cambridge’s collections have multiple lives, embracing public and private histories, personal and scientific interest and the past and the present. They illuminate the wider activities, histories and environments of the people who made them and the worlds they represent.
We draw upon our collections to conduct pioneering research. By investing in our collections and museums, our ambition is to deepen public understanding of cultures and peoples across the planet.
Accumulated over nearly 300 years, the collections contain materials from the dawn of human activity and beyond, and objects that stir our innate sense of wonder. As well as being a vital resource for research, teaching and cross-disciplinary exploration, they are an important means by which academic Cambridge shares its knowledge with the wider public, stimulating engagement with the subjects to which they relate. By animating concepts and ideas, they raise educational aspiration in the most powerful way there is: by appealing to the imagination.
