Everyone loves a ghost story at Christmas, don’t they? These real-life tales of haunted houses (above) are taken from the first volume of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Originally launched in 1882 to, in its members’ own words, make “an organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena…
Read More: Legendary Poets meet
by Antony Ramm, Information and Research, Central Library This is an entry in our Read More series. These are ‘long-form’ articles, where staff offer a curated and detailed look at areas of our book collections, usually based around a specific theme or subject. These posts aim to guide the interested reader through to those books that offer a…
Old Leeds Cold Cures
When coughs and colds sweep the offices of The Secret Library – as they do around the beginning of every winter – it’s not a pretty sight. But we are, after all, a hardy bunch, accustomed to the draughts and drips of a 130-year-old building, so we soldier on. And one of our most invaluable…
Beware the Heraldic Beasts
As you wander the staircases of Leeds Central Library you can’t help but notice the lions and dogs carved into the ends of the stair railings. There are various lions and dogs in different poses including one of a lion sitting majestic in a stance reminiscent of the ones guarding the neighbouring Leeds Town Hall…
Wrap Up Warm!
As the thrills of Halloween and Bonfire Night recede, and November really starts to dig its heels into the frosty ground, we tend to start thinking about warmer clothes and Christmas gifts. That’s a fact that certainly hasn’t changed over the last eighty years – as this lovely 1938 catalogue demonstrates – but the nature…
Read More: The Gunpowder Plot
by Antony Ramm, Leeds Central Library This is an entry in our Read More series. These are ‘long-form’ articles, where staff offer a curated and detailed look at areas of our book collections, usually based around a specific theme or subject. These posts aim to guide the interested reader through to those books that offer a more in-depth…
Pablo is Coming!
Marking the end of Black History month this week we are sharing three playbills from our collections featuring Pablo Fanque, Britain’s first black circus owner. Born William Darby on 28th February 1796 in Norwich he joined the circus in 1810 as an apprentice to William Batty who owned a small travelling circus. He was known as…
The Great Leeds Book Crisis of 1966
In October 1966 the Leeds City Engineers determined the structure of the Central Library in the Municipal Buildings, in particular the load-carrying beams, were not strong enough to carry the weight imposed by the Reference stock. Within weeks 80,000 volumes were moved from all stack rooms and gallery and stacked upon the library basement floors…
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