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The Library holds a wealth of resources including archives and special collections to support your study and research.
About our archives and special collections
You can search our archives and special collections to support your studies and research. These include the University's institutional archive dating back to 1891, the collections of the National Resource Centre for Dance, collections relating to the illustrator E.H. Shepard, and a range of other subject-specific collections.
What are archives?
Archives are collections of unique and rare material. They are an original source from a particular time, so can provide evidence on a subject, and can also add variety to your research through offering an account which others might not have considered.
An archive can range from a small box of letters, to hundreds of boxes of papers, photographs, digital and audio-visual material and objects created by an organisation or individual. Archives can be interdisciplinary and informative, explaining how or why something happened, but they are also inherently biased.
Every item in an archive was created for a reason – so always remember to ask yourself what the creator’s intentions might have been, and what might not have been kept. Archives can never fully replicate a time or experience but do give exciting, original traces for exploration and understanding.
The Archives Research Room is on the ground level of the Library. Please email the Archives team to make an appointment or with any enquiries. Ahead of an appointment you should consult our catalogue and email us with the reference numbers of the items you wish to see.
Any copying of archive material is subject to both the condition of the material and the restrictions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and subsidiary legislation. Digital photography permits are available, and staff can photocopy or scan some items.
There may be restrictions on reproducing some material, and you will need to complete the relevant form and pay the applicable fee, so talk to the Archives team for more information.
How to use the archives
There are some practicalities you will need to bear in mind when using archives:
You should contact the archive you are interested in going to ahead of visiting. They can advise on what you can and can’t bring, whether you can take copies of material, and can also suggest material you might be interested in seeing. Archive material will usually have to be ordered in advance, so if you just turn up you might find you can’t see what you want to
Archives cannot be borrowed, and access to them will only be provided under supervision in a research room, or through the supply of digital copies of material if permissible
To protect the archive material, you will not be allowed to bring items such as food, drink, bags, coats or pens into the research room
Archives require careful handling and you may be asked to use book supports or weights to protect the item
Taking digital photographs of material for personal research use may be permitted but will likely incur a fee and require the completion of documentation to comply with copyright legislation.
Most archives provide descriptions of material in online catalogues which users can browse and search to select the material they wish to see in a research room. However, a catalogue description could be quite limited and will only tell you so much about an item in an archive.
When looking at the item yourself you must first identify what it is. Ask yourself:
What type of object is it?
Who created it?
Do you know anything about the author/creator?
When was it created?
Why was it created?
Once you have identified what it is, you can then move on to interpreting the item. Ask yourself:
What points or arguments are made?
What values or attitudes does it reflect?
How does it relate to the context it was created in?
Who is the intended audience?
How reliable is the source?
You may find you cannot answer all the above questions by just looking at the archive material. You should consult secondary sources such as books, journal articles and websites to aid your understanding. You can then move on to relating the item to your research question and seeing what new perspectives it offers on your subject.
How to reference archives
If you are unsure on how to reference archives in your assignments, then take a look at our referencing archives guidance.
