Cambridge University Library - Historical Printing Room

University of Cambridge Cambridge University Library Departments and Services Rare Books Historical Printing Room Introduction Services Collections Specialist catalogues Electronic resources Projects Location Opening hours Contact us Historical Printing Room printing press The Library holds a number of collections of both printed and archival material of typographical interest. Foremost among these is the Morison collection of books and papers, the library of Stanley Morison, probably the most famous twentieth-century British typographer; but there is also the collection of Allen Hutt, historian of journalism and newspaper design, and the Broxbourne collection. Among archival sources the Cambridge University Press collection is probably the largest, but the Curwen Press, Nonesuch Press and Rampant Lions collections are also significant. However the Library also has a considerable collection of printing artefacts. This began with a decision in the early 1970s to set up a bibliographical teaching press on the lines of those already existing at the Bodleian, University College London and elsewhere. The impetus for this plan came from the late Philip Gaskell, then Librarian of Trinity College. The main aim was to enable students of literature to understand the practical details of hand composition of type and of printing on a hand-press, and thus to appreciate the ways in which both conscious decisions and accidents in the printing house could affect the accuracy of a text.