Historians of the book know how important it is that collections are maintained as opposed to broken up. Last year I was delighted to the see the collection of Derek Schartau arrive at the British Cartoon Archive. Derek’s collection focused on all things associated with Thomas Rowlandson (on whom I have blogged previously) and the books within it are a fascinating window into his research process: including everything from canonical works on Georgian satire to books about erotica (which Rowlandson had a sideline in) and porcelain (Derek was clearly trying to identify the provenance of the many Dr Syntax figurines and plates he purchased).

This morning the Special Collections & Archives team at the University of Kent announced that the collection has been catalogued and added the main library catalogue. Congrats to all involved for completing this work. Hopefully the 269 books in the collection will get plenty of interest from researchers and the student body: it could certainly support an intriguing project on collectors of Georgian satire circa 1970-2012.