This week we hear from guest author Lauren Stead, who has been investigating in more detail one of our Central Library’s major collections… As a history student, I believe the most exciting element of research is working with primary sources. By looking at material created by and for people in the past, a deeper understanding…
Category: Art & Literature
Why The Golden Beam?
This week we welcome back Library and Digital Assistant Jan Pinder, who finds the answer to a question in the artistry of a local legend… Why was the newest Wetherspoons in Leeds named The Golden Beam? Opened on June 8 2021 it seems a curious name choice for a pub, particularly considering that many of…
The mountain, the logbook, and the wickedest man in the world: early days of the climbing scene
This week we welcome back Library and Digital Assistant Joey Talbot, who explores the fascinating history of climbing in the Leeds Libraries collections… During April, we’re holding a display of climbing and mountaineering related materials in the Local and Family History Library, and to tie into that I’m bringing you a little taste of the…
The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #9
The latest in an occasionally-regular series exploring books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm looks at a slim 18th-century volume of antiquarian musings… Titled ‘A Survey of Yorkshire,’ it is debatable, really, whether this is even a book at all: although bound like a book, it is quite clearly a chapter, one…
Flaubert and his parrot are in Egypt
Welcome to 2025! Our first article on the Secret Library Leeds this year Librarian Antony Ramm’s brief look at the breadth and depth of books in our Central Library stacks, using Gustave Flaubert as a case study… For reasons that are not worth going into here, I have recently been reading a pile of London…
A Dream of Leeds (Part 2)
Becky Bavill brings us the second part of this fascinating story of a musical life in Leeds… In the first part of this article, I had identified the author of the music and her family. What I was interested in now were the two people Amelia’s father felt were important enough to him or his…
A Dream of Leeds (Part I)
This week on the Secret Library Leeds we welcome Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill for a deep-dive into the family history archives, all sparked by some cross-departmental collaboration with our colleagues in the Music Library… In a box in the music department is a printed pianoforte piece. It’s called ‘The Dream’ by the late…
John Searle Ragland Phillips (1850-1919) and the Growth of Journalism – Part 1
This week we welcome guest author, retired librarian Lucy M. Evans, who enjoys delving into the obscure Victorian world of northern librarians and learned societies. She has previously written about the longevity guru Maurice Ernest, Andrea Crestadoro, a Chief Librarian in Manchester (copy available at LCL), and is currently finishing a biography of his friend…
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