The Story of Leodis – photographic archive of Leeds

Today’s post comes from Senior Librarian Manager Louise Birch who will take us back in time to explore the origins of the Leodis website, and what it was like to be an indexer of images. The year is 1999, Tony Blair is Prime Minister, Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ exhibits at the Tate, about 12 million…

Rediscovering the Lost Streets of Victorian Burmantofts and Sheepscar

Funded by a Jane Moody Scholarship, University of York PhD researcher Joanne Harrison is collaborating with Leeds Central Library’s Local and Family History department and Leeds Museums and Galleries to deliver five online workshops. She reports here on this exciting project that will bring an improved experience to users of the Leodis archive, and a…

A Garden Through Time: Headingley Zoological and Botanical Gardens

This week on the Secret Library we hear from local artist Matthew Bellwood, who talks us through a fascinating interactive local history walk, which we were very honoured to contribute resources to, primarily from Leodis, our archive of historical Leeds images… A lost landmark of Leeds has been brought back to life in A Garden…

Learning to see Le Prince

This week on the Secret Library we are delighted to welcome back guest author Irfan Shah, who has previously written for us on Leeds’ contribution to the development of photography. In this article, roughly coinciding with the 130th anniversary of the disappearance of Louis Le Prince (September 16 1890), Irfan shares some exciting news about…

HOD 2020: YOU ARE HERE

In the second of our Heritage Open Day triple-bill, we hear from Rob Kilner of Workers Lunchtime, on a map event for Heritage Open Days 2020…If this is of interest – be quick! The maps will be on display until September 29.  YOU ARE HERE is a temporary poster exhibition on the streets of Leeds…

HOD 2020: Hidden Nature, Hidden History Heritage Trail

This year for Heritage Open Day (Sept 11-20) we are doing things a little bit differently: instead of opening up our building, we are opening up our city centre for you to explore and enjoy while finding out more about this year’s theme of Hidden Nature. Leeds is a city of green spaces with large…

Family History Resources: Historical Trade Directories

This week on the Secret Library we hear from Local and Family History’s Josh Flint, who will be exploring the excellent family history resource, historical trade directories. This article will help family history researchers understand what trade directories are, how they can be useful for family history research and finally where to find them. This…

VE Day Resources

Friday 8 May sees the 75th-anniversary of the ending of the Second World War in Europe, known as VE Day. Previously we have told you a little bit about how Leeds celebrated this momentous day on our Leeds Celebrations for VE Day blog so today we wanted to tell you about some free online resources…