Durham Residential Research Library

The challenge of promoting research collections to researchers – whether locally or globally – is an ongoing one, with many solutions employed by different institutions over time.

This paper will look at research fellowships as one answer to this challenge. It will describe one collaborative research-led, collections-focussed initiative at Durham which aims to increase use and knowledge of collections (including archives, special book collections, art, museum collections and built heritage) at the University and also at Durham Cathedral and Ushaw College.

Durham Residential Research Library was launched in February 2017, to bring leading researchers from around the world to Durham to work with the outstanding collections in the three institutions, and to enhance the scholarly community in and around Durham City. With internal and philanthropic funding, the aim of the project is to provide fellowships of between 1 and 3 months’ duration, for up to 10 researchers at any one time, for 10 months of the year. So far 60 months of fellowships have been awarded for research in during 2017 – 2020. The ‘Residential’ element is focussed on Ushaw College, a Gothic revival ‘hidden gem’ just outside Durham, where fellows participate in or contribute to a growing public engagement programme, including public lectures and cultural events.

The paper will describe the strategic objectives behind the DRRL project and review the benefits and challenges it has brought to archives and special collections at Durham. It will also set Durham’s scheme in a wider context of fellowships offered by universities across the UK (whether by libraries, or academic departments and institutes). This should prompt a discussion on the effectiveness of fellowships in furthering research-related and collections-related agendas, and the potential for further collaboration in the future.