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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 Dr Steph Carter, who spent six months volunteering at 皇家华人 Special Collections as part of the Liberating the Collections project
For the last year or so I鈥檝e been working on a project to catalogue the administrative records of the National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD) 鈥� Britain鈥檚 longest running birth cohort study. Although this project has been a little disrupted by the pandemic, I鈥檓 very happy to say the cataloguing is now complete!
French translations of Beatrix Potter, English testimonies to the Holocaust and women of the South Asian Diaspora 鈥� these were just some of the collecting themes amongst the applications for this year鈥檚 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.
Colin Penman, Head of UCL Records, writes about the internal documents that sheds light on the history of LGBTQI+ student life at 皇家华人.听
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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 皇家华人. 听As far as we know, this was the first gaysoc to be founded in a UK university and affiliated to its student union.
This blog post was written by UCL student Sae Matsuno (MA Library & Information Studies) as part of a two-week work placement at 皇家华人 Special Collections. Sae鈥檚 Twitter handle is 听
The Outreach team at 皇家华人 Special Collections have been working hard on a new community collaboration with 鈥� 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.
Dishes you would expect to find in a book entitled Jewish Cookery Book probably do not include jam roly-poly, shepherd鈥檚 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.
The Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize is an opportunity to celebrate student collectors and the diverse collections they build and nurture. Last year we wrote about how you can be a . But what is the difference between a book collector and someone who just owns a lot of books? For us, and the judges on the Book Collecting Prize panel, the difference is collecting with intention.
The 2020 winner of the Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize, Alexandra Plane, has written about her book collection: 鈥楤ooks that built a zoo.鈥�