It’s Banned Books Week this week (September 22 to September 28). We’ve recently unearthed this wonderful list of books banned by Leeds (Public) Libraries in 1975 – or, if not quite banned entirely, at least only available with Librarian approval. While we definitely don’t operate in this way anymore, we thought it would be interesting…
It Could Happen to You: The Mystery of the “Metcalfe Millions”
This week the staff in our Local and Family History department bring us a wonderful story sourced from a recent customer enquiry and some dogged detective work in our resources… One of the joys of working in the Local and Family History department are the occasionally offbeat enquiries we get, and the many wide and…
A Voyage of Discovery
To conclude this year’s ‘Routes – Networks – Connections’ themed Heritage Open Days, Senior Librarian for Special Collections and Heritage, Rhian Isaac, shares her journey into researching a special collection of photographs. As lockdowns began to ease during the Covid pandemic, I was finally able to return to the Central Library to check on…
Heritage Open Day 2024: What’s in a Name?
To mark the upcoming Heritage Open Day Week (6-15 September 2024), Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill brings us some fantastic detective work in our Central Library archives to (re)discover the site of a long-forgotten mansion in the centre of Leeds… Join us on Saturday September 7 in the Central Library’s Local and Family History…
Women’s history month stock display
During February and March we delved deep into the Central Library collections to curate a display highlighting the contributions of women to the fields of science, medicine, health and wellbeing. That display is now reproduced below. Most of the content was created by Library and Digital Assistant Heather Edwards and further information can be found…
Housing the city: Leeds City Council papers
This week on the Secret Library we are delighted to hear once again from Andy Armstrong, one of our heritage volunteers, on a significant piece of cataloguing work we’ve asked them to help us with. You can find more articles about housing in Leeds elsewhere on the blog… Hi. My name’s Andy Armstrong and I…
Poor Laws, Workhouses to ‘Food Bank Britain’: a brief overview of how poverty has been understood and addressed from Pre-Modern to contemporary Britain
This week we welcome University of Leeds student Emily O’Riley. Having completed a yearlong research project alongside the Thackray Museum of Medicine, who provided 360 biographies of Workhouse inmates based on 1881 census data, Emily reflects on the Victorian Workhouse and what it can tell us about British society. The first thing we learnt about…
Watergate: Even Richard Nixon has got soul
This week on the Secret Library Leeds Librarian Antony Ramm offers a break from our usual programming to mark a significant anniversary in modern American politics… “Our secret’s safe and still well kept |Where even Richard Nixon has got soul.” – Neil Young On this day, 50-years ago, President Richard Nixon of the United States…
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