Close
How to access the Language & Speech Science Library's Special Collections, including the speech and language therapy test collection and historical material.
LaSS Library Test Collection
UCL's Language & Speech Science (LaSS) Library holds a unique collection of approximately 850 tests for the assessment of speech and language development. Most of these are held on open access at the back of the Library reading room, but some psychology tests, such as the Wechsler scales and the British Ability Scales, are held at the Library Desk on restricted access. All tests can only be used by either qualified clinicians, or students under strict clinical supervision, and for this reason their use is restricted to students and staff of UCL Psychology and Language Sciences, and members of the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists. (RCSLT members must pay an annual fee to borrow any items from the Library).
Tests come in various shapes and sizes. Some are simple checklists of words, others are kits containing toys and games for children, or pictures and objects for word recognition. As well as diagnostic tests, the collection contains other therapy resource materials. Most of the tests are available to be borrowed.
Tests are usually known by their acronym, e.g. the TROG (Test for the Reception of Grammar). They can be found by looking them up on Explore in the same way as books, and are arranged on the shelves by Dewey decimal classmark followed by the acronym, e.g. 401.93 TROG.
LaSS Library Historical Collection
Note: The Historical Collection has now been placed in offsite storage.
Please see the UCL Library Services' Stores service to find out how to request items from Stores.
Since the late 1990s, librarians and academic staff have been collecting historical material relating to speech and language, with a view to creating the UK's first historical collection in this relatively new subject area. Contacts were made with pioneering speech therapists who were entering retirement, such as Margaret Greene and Margaret Edwards, who subsequently donated their personal collections of books and pamphlets to the Library. Greene, co-author with Lesley Mathieson of the classic textbook The Voice & its Disorders (now in its 6th edition and still a core text) wrote a note with her donation, expressing her "unexpected bereavement pang at the departure of my much loved and treasured books", but that she was "very glad they have such a satisfactory and useful permanent home" at UCL. Many more books were collected from other libraries, such as the British Library's Document Supply Centre and the Friends of the Children of Great Ormond Street. The Collection was catalogued in 2002 with a grant from the British Library and Wellcome Trust's Collections in the History of Medicine project, and continues to expand. It now comprises over 1500 items, including books, conference proceedings, pamphlets and offprints, and one 1963 vinyl LP of child speech. There is a whole box file of obscure articles by Margaret Greene, and another for Fritz Grewel. Other treasures which have been unearthed in the Collection include a 1905 edition of Helen Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life; James Hunt's A treatise on the Cure of Stammering from 1857; and an 1880 edition of Gray's Anatomy.
Items in the Historical Collection are identified on the UCL Library catalogue by the location code "HIST.COLL", followed by the first 3 letters of the author's name (or an acronym, in the case of conference proceedings), and are for use in the Library only. Enquiries regarding these valuable resources are welcomed by the LaSS Librarian.
