Today we hear from regular guest author Mike Harwood, who tells the story of this building during the tumult of World War 2… ‘Tuesday, 31 October 1939: “Felt energetic so polished several floors and worked fairly hard. Tony came home to lunch at 1.30, and the afternoon somehow slipped away….Went to the library and got…
Category: Events
The History of Book Illustration
This week Central Collections Manager, Rhian Isaac discusses The History of Book Illustration through our collections here in Central Library. Illustrated texts pre-date the printed book by thousands of years but unfortunately much has been lost from early civilisations, such as Greece, China and Rome due to the fragility of the material. Ancient Egypt is the exception…
The Golden Age of Childhood
Join us on an exploration of classic children’s books from our collection and the evocative illustrations that accompanied them. Many books that we now regard as children’s classics, such as Aesop’s Fables and the stories of Grimm and Anderson, were originally written for adults. They were simply tales intended to inform and instruct. In 1860,…
Measure of the Moon by Irfan Shah
This week we hear from researcher Irfan Shah on Leeds’ contribution to the development of photography. When I started researching the story of Louis Le Prince – the French inventor who shot the world’s first films here in Leeds in 1888 – it soon became apparent that when he arrived in the town in 1866,…
1970 Clothing Strike: New Resource
We were delighted to welcome University of Leeds student, Jessica Heath, to the Central Library in March of this year. Jessica led a workshop exploring the causes and effects of the 1970 Clothing Strike across Leeds, which was largely led by women workers. The legacy of that workshop, as Librarian Antony Ramm explains, was the…
The Vote Before the Vote
This week, local author Chris Nickson and curator of 2018 exhibition The Vote Before the Vote, tells us more about some important, but relatively unknown women of Leeds. Right at the start of the era, in 1832, Mary Smith of Stanmore, Yorkshire, which is believed to be a property very close to today’s Cottage Road…
Booze n’ Footy: On Northern Identity and Masculinity
On Tuesday evening the Central Library welcomed a small panel of experts for an hour-long discussion. @grimupnorth2017’s @123McTom and @mjohnreeve discussing how history can inform identity at the #TheseNorthernTypes roundtable event. pic.twitter.com/Amc2ZPMvRc — Dr Rhiannon Pickin (@RhiannonPickin) April 17, 2018 Designed to spark thinking and discussion around the theme of ‘Northern identity,’ coinciding with a…
Speed-dating our Library Treasures III
As part of our Library Fest 2018 programme, we once again ran our popular Speed-dating our Library Treasures event – this time twice: on Valentine’s Day in the Tiled Hall cafe and a day later at the Hyde Park Book Club. Both events proved very successful, with attendees taking great interest in the wide range of items…
