Here at Leeds Central Library, we recently hosted a treasure handling workshop to show off a few more of our botanical items that we could not fit in our current exhibition – Unearthed: The Power of Gardening – at Leeds Central Library until 29 October 2025. First up was Flora Londinensis by William Curtis. This…
Tag: special collections
Working on the Spark Collection: a history about the Leeds Triennial Musical Festival in early years
Following Lauren Stead’s article in May, we now welcome MA student Xuan Li for a further exploration of the Central Library’s Spark Collection… Over the past few months, I’ve had the chance to work on a short-term archive project at Leeds Central Library, exploring the fascinating Spark Collection. This archive is named after Frederick R….
Unearthing Spark: A Student Archivist’s Experience at Leeds Central Library
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…
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…
Mary Wollstonecraft – the Mother of Modern Feminism.
This week, to celebrate International Women’s Day, Library and Digital Assistant Alexandra Brummitt, looks at the works and life of the first British feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft. Looking at Wollstonecraft’s most famous work, she discusses how this work influenced the suffrage movement and generations of feminists. When thinking of the suffrage movement at the turn of…
A Book to Dye ForÂ
In this blog post Rhian Isaac, Senior Librarian for Special Collections and Heritage, shares a deadly discovery. Â One weekend I stumbled upon an intriguing article in National Geographic that highlighted the Winterthur Museum’s Poison Book Project, and it instantly caught my attention. I was captivated with the idea of poisonous books lying undetected in library collections,…
Fantasy: Realms of Imagination and Leeds Libraries Special Collections
On this week’s Secret Library Heritage Blog, we hear from Librarian Josh Flint who will be exploring a few of his favourite special collection items from the Leeds Central Library’s Fantasy exhibition which was inspired by The British Library’s Fantasy: Realms of Imagination. The exhibition will be ending on the 17th January so make sure…
Fantasy: Realms of Imagination
Our new exhibition, inspired by Fantasy: Realms of Imagination at the British Library opened in November and aims to bring a bit of magic to Leeds Central Library over the cold winter months, before touring to community libraries across the city. The beautiful grade II* listed building with its winding staircases and heraldic beasts lends…
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