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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
Archives
UCL's archive and manuscript collections include the UNESCO registered George Orwell Archive.
Records
Map of Bloomsbury, 1800 College Collection.
Exhibitions
View current and past exhibitions online.
Rare Books
The Ratdolt edition of Euclid's 'Elements', 1482.
View 'Treasures from UCL', available for free online.
Finding Material
- You can search for rare books and other printed material on Explore.
- Archives and manuscripts are found on the .
- Search for digitised and digital content on Digital Collections.听
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
This guest blog post was written by Jane McChrystal , who spent five months volunteering at 皇家华人 Special Collections as part of the Liberating the Collections project.
We are delighted to announce the winner and finalists of this year鈥檚 Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize 2022.
The prize is open to students at London-based universities, and this year applicants included students from Birkbeck, Royal Holloway, SOAS, the Royal College Of Art and UCL.
This blog was written by Arzama Hossain, a participant on this year鈥檚 . The project seeks to offer a cohort of 18-24 year olds from East London the chance to learn more about the cultural heritage sector, receive relevant training and to produce something for a real life heritage audience as part of . In Arzama鈥檚 own words, it is 鈥榓 project in which you learn and work鈥� at the same time.
The Hebrew & Jewish Studies Collections in UCL Special Collections include a treasure trove of material in the form of pamphlets. There are over 9,000 pamphlets on a wide range of subjects throughout the field of Jewish Studies, particularly Anglo-Jewish history, Zionism and liturgy. The pamphlets date from 1601 onwards, and are in English, Hebrew, German and a number of other languages.
This post was written by Caroline Kimbell, UCL Library Services
Erick Jackaman very kindly talked to us about his experience applying for the Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize and his fantastic collection 鈥楻ead my Genders: A Trans for Trans Collection鈥�. You can follow Erick on Instagram and Twitter @transingabout
University College London (UCL) Special Collections and the team up to offer one-of-a-kind Summer School!
We have been fortunate to host two students on a 50 hour placement from the IOE鈥檚 BA in Education Studies, and as their time comes to a close with us, they have written a blog to share their experiences.听 Both students spent time learning about the Special Collections department before immersing themselves in the delivery of an Outreach project at 皇家华人 Academy 鈥� an after school club called听滨濒濒耻蝉迟谤补迟别!听which explores the use of illustration in our collection of rare books, archives and manuscripts.
Eric Xu
For most of recent history, access to the means to read, write, publish and collect texts was restricted to society鈥檚 most privileged. Most of the 150,000 rare books that are looked after by UCL Special Collections were donated over the past two centuries by members of the same privileged group. Collecting books is never neutral: the choice to purchase books in a certain discipline, or on specific topics or by particular authors also implies the choice not to purchase other materials.