Everyone can access UCL Special Collections digitally or in person. Our collections of rare, unique and historic archives & books cover themes including history of UCL, education, arts and sciences.
Collection Highlights
Finding Material
- You can search for rare books and other printed material on Explore.
- Archives and manuscripts are found on the Archives Catalogue.
- Search for digitised and digital content on Digital Collections.
For more information and video tutorials on how to use these resources to find material held by UCL Special Collections, learn about Our Collections.
News from our blog
First Impressions: Pre-1750 women writers represented in UCL’s special collections
This guest blog post was written by Isobel Goodman, who spent six months volunteering at UCL Special Collections as part of the Liberating the Collections project.
Women in the Italian Book Trade: forgotten owners and producers of Italian books
This guest blog post was written by Sara D’Amico, who spent six months volunteering at UCL Special Collections as part of the Liberating the Collections project
Exploring Women Owners of UCL’s pre-1750 Rare Books
This guest blog post was written by Dr Steph Carter, who spent six months volunteering at UCL Special Collections as part of the Liberating the Collections project
Cataloguing the records of Britain’s longest-running birth cohort study
For the last year or so I’ve been working on a project to catalogue the administrative records of the National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD) – Britain’s longest running birth cohort study. Although this project has been a little disrupted by the pandemic, I’m very happy to say the cataloguing is now complete!
Announcing the winners of the 2021 Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize
French translations of Beatrix Potter, English testimonies to the Holocaust and women of the South Asian Diaspora – these were just some of the collecting themes amongst the applications for this year’s Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize, which is open to all students at London-based universities. The prize, which is generously funded by Anthony Davis, aims to encourage collectors who are at an early stage of collecting books, printed materials or manuscripts.
‘Well really, have we come to that?’: Excerpts from UCL’s LGBT History
Colin Penman, Head of UCL Records, writes about the internal documents that sheds light on the history of LGBTQI+ student life at UCL.
In March 1972, Jamie Gardiner, a PhD student in the UCL Department of Mathematics, now a lawyer and human rights activist in Australia, founded the Homophile Society, or Gaysoc at UCL. As far as we know, this was the first gaysoc to be founded in a UK university and affiliated to its student union.
Kaladlit Okalluktualliait (Greenlandic Folktales): Contentious histories of preserving indigenous oral traditions
This blog post was written by UCL student Sae Matsuno (MA Library & Information Studies) as part of a two-week work placement at UCL Special Collections. Sae’s Twitter handle is @O_Aspirations.
Community Curated Exhibition Tours Newham Libraries
The Outreach team at UCL Special Collections have been working hard on a new community collaboration with Newham Heritage Month – The New Curators Project. This project set out to provide 10 young people from East London the chance to develop the skills and experience needed to start a career in the cultural heritage sector. Successful applicants would receive a bursary, training from industry experts and they would create an exhibition and online event for a real-life audience as part of Newham Heritage Month in May 2021.
From matzo balls to Christmas pudding: the Jewish Cookery Book (1895)
Dishes you would expect to find in a book entitled Jewish Cookery Book probably do not include jam roly-poly, shepherd’s pie and Cornish pasties. Yet, these traditional British recipes are all listed in this curious cookery book, which was recently acquired for UCL Special Collections.