On the 1st floor

Students' lecture notes past and present

The exhibition Embellishing Knowledge retraces several centuries of note-taking and highlights the importance of the image that has taken its place around the text. It presents around thirty old manuscripts (17th-18th centuries) from the collections of the UCLouvain Archives, set against more recent documents and practices from the 19th century to the present day. The manuscripts produced at the old university (1425-1797) stand out for the quantity and eclecticism of the representations inserted by students. These drawings and engravings were intended to be educational as well as ornamental, mnemonic, humorous or symbolic. Didactic diagrams and scientific representations rub shoulders with ornamented letters, caricatures and allegorical images.

The role of the visual has continued to grow ever since. More recent lecture notes, featuring a wider variety of techniques: writing with a pen, then with a pen and ballpoint pen, typed notes, the appearance of syllabi, the use - sometimes extensive - of highlighters...

Much more than mere learning tools, students' lecture notes are reflections of their time, bearing witness to teaching practices as well as being sites of extraordinary creativity.