To celebrate the new title Temptation in the Archives: Essays in Golden Age Dutch Culture by our inaugural author Lisa Jardine, we will be giving three lucky winners a signed copy of Temptation in the Archives and a lovely UCL Press tote bag to carry it in. The competition starts today Monday 15 June and will run for one week.

To enter simply follow @UCLpress on Twitter and use the hashtag #Tempted replying to @UCLpress … Good luck!

The competition will start Monday 15 June 2015 and will run until Friday 19 June 2015. We will announce our winners on Monday 22 June 2015. Winners will be picked at random, and winning participants will be asked to Direct Message via Twitter your email address so that we can make contact and arrange delivery of your signed copy of Temptation in the Archives and the tote bag.

Best of luck!

PLEASE NOTE: this competition is now closed.

About a year ago, it dawned on the staff of UCL’s Petrie Museum that the centenary of our opening was not far off. To mark the occasion the team decided that a souvenir publication would be fitting tribute for such an internationally renowned collection. Time to produce such a book, however, was short. Fortunately, UCL Press received the proposal positively and the scramble to pull together the volume began.

With upwards of 80,000 objects in the collection, more than a century of important discoveries and thousands of years of history to engage with, finding suitable content wasn’t hard. Deciding what could fit into 120 pages was. All that we could do was sketch out the contours of the museum’s holdings, from the Stone Age axes to the medieval and Islamic artefacts, and from the smallest trinkets to the largest monuments. We also wanted to challenge assumptions about the nature of the collection because it is far broader than the term ‘Egyptian archaeology’ might popularly suggest: there are objects from Sudan, Korea, China, Greece, Palestine, Syria, India and Iraq for instance. Additionally, we sought to showcase the unusual: artefacts made from extra-terrestrial materials, objects fished out from dark, flooded burial chambers and long-lost things rediscovered in unlikely places.

What really drove the story-telling, however, were the characters whose lives became entangled with the museum’s history. They include the adventurous Flinders Petrie, a man who Lawrence of Arabia once described as ‘enormous fun’ and who Howard Carter credited as turning him into a true excavator; Margaret Murray, an Egyptology lecturer at UCL and a significant influence on the development of Wicca; Gertrude Caton-Thompson, a pioneering archaeologist who went on to prove that Great Zimbabwe was the work of indigenous Africans; and Ali Suefi, Flinders Petrie’s Egyptian right-hand man and discoverer of many of the most prized objects in the museum.

To even attempt to do justice to this eclectic assemblage and history requires many voices and a range of expertise. It is therefore thanks to all of our contributors for swiftly penning their sections, to UCL Press and Media Services for their professionalism and to the Friends of the Petrie Museum for financial support, that this publication has come together in such good shape and on such a tight deadline. And with over 1300 Open Access downloads in the first week, we’re off to a great start!

Alice Stevenson, Curator, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

When I was first commissioned to write the Treasures from UCL book in the summer of 2012, to promote the UCL Special Collections, I was absolutely delighted to take on the job and really excited at the prospect. Not only did it mean a great opportunity to publicise the Library’s wonderful collections, but it also meant I was able to revisit the numerous fabulous treasures that UCL holds, always a joy.

I was going to get to see my favourite items again at close hand! The Persian manuscript, the Beethoven letter, the John Gould books (the list goes on)!  I knew though that it was going to be a long road ahead, and I would need to be quite ruthless in my choice of items. That was the hardest part. Deciding what to leave out was not going to be easy. But I’ve always liked a challenge, so I immediately set to work making a list of those items which should definitely go in. A pattern soon began to emerge and a rough chronological weaving in and out of the wide range of materials at my disposal seemed the best way to go, like embroidery or a jigsaw, it seemed to me.

The next challenge was focussed on getting all the significant detail right in the descriptive text while at the same time bringing out the most interesting angle for each item included. There were times when I thought I’d never get to the end of all 70 items. Alongside this came the job of gathering all the images together to do justice to the illuminations, the bookbindings, and all the fine detail of printed as well as manuscript text, not to mention the exquisite colours and intricacies of the more delicate books. All in all I must have dealt with over 200 images, most of which had to be re-photographed from the originals, since many of the existing images were some years old and just wouldn’t do. For light relief I was also setting aside time to complete the text for the history of the collections which appears at the beginning of the book, and liaising with the brilliant contributing authors.

The process of putting the actual volume together was an enjoyable experience in itself, from sending in the first drafts to checking the index. In between there were many back-and-forths with the UCL Press staff and their appointed editor and designer, checking details, correcting typos, and working with the UCL Press designer to choose the most appropriate design and look for the finished product. I should mention that I wouldn't have been able to achieve half of what I did without the brilliant support of all my colleagues in Library Services, and of course UCL Press. It is wonderful to see the book published as one of the first books for the UCL Press launch, not only in Open Access and print form but also in an enhanced digital version available freely online, where readers can not only enjoy the book but also see videos of academics talking about some of the key items and view the images in all their glory in deep zoom.

Gillian Furlong, Head of Special Collections and Archivist, UCL Library Services

UCL is pleased to announce the launch of UCL Press, the University’s in house publishing arm, on 4 June 2015. UCL Press will be the first fully Open Access university press in the UK with all books, journals and monographs freely available online, creating a diverse and accessible global knowledge resource.

UCL Press aims to combine responsiveness, innovation and quality publishing to become the Open Access publisher of choice for authors, editors and readers. Using a range of Open Access platforms, UCL Press will publish cutting-edge research across all topics with books submitted by both UCL and non-UCL authors. 

The Press will mainly focus on scholarly monographs, textbooks and journals and its three inaugural titles include: Temptation in the Archives by Lisa Jardine, Treasures from UCL by Gillian Furlong and The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections by Alice Stevenson.

The founding ethos of UCL Press builds upon UCL’s wider commitment to communicating and engaging with the world. Open Access ensures academic research is accessible to everyone, as all publications are freely available online with no payment restrictions.

Paul Ayris, Director of Library Services and Chief Executive of UCL Press says:
“Universities have a real chance to take a more proactive approach to publishing and research dissemination. UCL has been at the forefront of promoting Open Access, and the launch of UCL Press is the next step in our commitment to making academic work as accessible as possible.”

Lara Speicher, Publishing Manager of UCL Press says: 
“We have already had an overwhelming response to our first call for proposals which shows the increasing demand from researchers for Open Access publishing. We look forward to developing the Press further in the coming years and creating a publishing programme as innovative and unique as UCL itself.”

All titles published by UCL Press will be made available in Open Access digital form, as well as in print and e-book formats available commercially.