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General Rare Book Collection

Extent

Ca. 37,000 items

Scope and content

This miscellaneous collection consists of rare books printed after 1640. It includes works across all disciplines in a variety of languages. It is particularly strong in Art, Medicine, History, Natural History, English language and literature and Scandinavian languages and literature.

History

The collection was built up through donations from various sources and the transfer of material from the general UCL library collections.

Access

The collection is partly catalogued. To browse the records for items pertaining to the following subject areas, conduct a shelfmark search on Explore for the following:

  • ART RARE
  • EGYPTOLOGY RARE
  • ENGLISH RARE
  • ORTHOPAEDICS SC
  • RARE MATHS

Items pertaining to the remaining disciplines are classified according to the Garside system. To browse the records for a particular subject area, conduct a shelfmark search on Explore for R followed by a space and the corresponding number, enclosed in double quotation marks.

For example

To browse the records for items classified under Philosophy, search for “R 150”. 

To browse the records of the entire collection, conduct a search for CLASSIFIEDRARE, without spaces, on Explore.