University of Reading

“Heritage assets include many unique items and collections which the university has accumulated since incorporation. These are held and maintained principally for their contribution to knowledge and culture. The university conserves these assets and augments the collections where appropriate in order to enable use of the assets for teaching and research and access to the assets for engagement with members of the public. The items and collections are carefully catalogued and custodianship is given to specific areas and persons for their care and maintenance. The university's collections span museum, archive and library holdings of regional, national and international significance. These include the university's library and archive special collections, the art collection, the museum of english rural life, the cole museum of zoology, the university herbarium, the ure museum of greek archaeology, and the lettering, printing and graphic design collections. These collections can be viewed by members of the public (some collections can only be viewed by appointment). The university's special collections include rare books (pre-1851), private press books, modern literary first editions and other printed material. They also include over 300 archive collections, notably the samuel beckett collection and the archive of british publishing and printing, both of which are designated as outstanding collections by arts council england. Other collections cover a wide range of subjects from manuscripts dating back to the 12th century to modern records of the university. The university's art collection comprises around 1000 works of painting, drawing, sculpture and graphic art and includes many pieces of national and international significance. The museum of english rural life (merl) tells the story of rural england through interactive and immersive galleries. The collection has over 25,000 objects and the museum library has the most comprehensive collection of books related to rural england with around 50,000 volumes. The collection also contains hundreds of hours of historic film and over 1 million photographs, including material from prominent agricultural publications and organisations. The archives cover more than 4.5 kilometres of shelving. The cole museum of zoology was established in the early 20th century by francis j. Cole, professor of zoology from 1907 to 1939. It contains around 4,000 specimens. The museum illustrates the relationship between form and function in the animal kingdom and houses one of britain's most important zoological collections. The museum is located in the new health and life sciences building. The university herbarium was founded in 1900 and contains over 260,000 dried plant specimens. The collection is rich in specimens from europe, north africa, macaronesia, the middle east, temperate south america and the falkland islands. Ferns and fern allies are also represented on a worldwide scale. There are very significant british lichen and bryophyte holdings. The ure museum of greek archaeology was formed in the early 1920s and contains the fourth largest collection of ancient greek ceramics in britain. The collection primarily consists of material from the greek and grecoroman civilisations of the mediterranean, most notably greek and etruscan ceramics and terracottas. Other artefacts include prehistoric pottery and an important collection of egyptian antiquities, the total size of the collection is over 2,000 objects.”

“Use in public engagement and community outreach activities.”

“Details of endowment fund amounts are reported in the financial statements of the university of reading and are presented in gbp in those financial statements.all amounts reported on schedule d, part v, line 1 were converted from british pounds to us dollars using the gbp/usd conversion rates applicable at 30 june for each relevant year, as taken from https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/treasury-reporting-rate s-exchange/”

“The endowment funds are solely used for furthering academic aims at the university. They include land and property held to generate investment returns. They are used to fund scholarships, prizes, and provide other funding where appropriate, including larger grants to the university to fund capital expenditure or underpin running costs. They may have restrictions on expenditure which in terms of both use or source (income or capital) run from the freely expendable to the higher limited. An accounting change in 2021 moves a large balance out of endowment funds into general reserves within our balance sheet, when a charitable trust was dissolved, removing all restrictions.this movement has been recorded under "administrative expenses" as there is no line for fundamental changes of treatment in the pro forma.”