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University of London Libraries

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Historical Note

Founded in 1837, the University of London Library (ULL) was formally opened in 1877 (following the gift of Augustus De Morgan’s Library) in Burlington Gardens. Rapid expansion followed through both gifts and purchases, culminating in the gift of the Goldsmith’s Library of Economic Literature by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in 1903. In 1900, the University was reconstituted and the Library was moved from Burlington Gardens to South Kensington, and was formally re-opened by the Chancellor, the Earl of Rosebery, in 1906. The Library was moved again, in 1937, to the Bloomsbury site. The Library’s core mission from its inception was as a central research library - broadly across the wider arts, humanities and social sciences.

Historic Collections

The Historic Collections held by the ULL are particularly fine, and number well over 260,000 titles (together with extensive archive, manuscript and other holdings). The ULL has one of the highest proportions of Rare Books and Special Collections of any UK Higher Education library – a vast resource built up over more than 150 years. The University owes a great debt to the donors of the Historic Collections, large and small, and individual volumes alike which form a significant part of our international intellectual heritage.

The Historic Collections comprise well over 55 named Special Collections, plus the vast resource dating back to the 17th century in the integrated research stack, and over 40 collections of archives and manuscripts.

Coverage of file

The records submitted to the HPB database have been drawn from the current on-line computer catalogue, extracting items published in and before 1830. This of necessity only represents a proportion of the Library’s early holdings. There is an ongoing process of retroconversion of records from the card catalogue, and further relevant material will be added to the HPB in due course.

Types of material include books, pamphlets, broadsides, maps contained in monographs, and scores.

Early serials are not yet included, they will be submitted in due course.

Among the major collections substantially represented thus far are the following:

NB: virtually all the pre 1830 titles from the collections named below have been submitted to HPB.

Bromhead Library

For scholars anywhere in or outside the United Kingdom working on the history of London or on the English Civil War, this collection is a mine of rich material, much of which has never been exploited. The collection of Colonel A C Bromhead, co-founder of the Gaumont cinemas, contains over 4,000 items (books, pamphlets, broadsides, manuscripts and prints) on various aspects of the history of the City and the environs of London from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

It includes a large number of Civil War pamphlets and 17th-century Lord Mayors' pageants, as well as political, economic, social and topographical material. There are also works relating to the history of settlement in Australia. In the course of a project to catalogue the collection on-line, a number of works have been found to be unique and many extremely rare.

Eliot-Phelips Collection

This collection of over 3,500 items was formed by Edward Frederick Phelips (1882-1928), of Montacute House, Somerset and bequeathed by him to the Corporation of London. It was deposited in the University Library in 1950. It is rich in research materials relevant to the cultural, social and economic history of Spain, with particular concentrations in two areas: Spanish imprints of the hand press era and the urban history of Madrid. Many of the pre-1830 volumes are outstanding examples of early Spanish book production, with the major printing houses of the 17th century well represented; they include several rare items. The source material for the development of Madrid includes numerous ephemeral publications (from religious pamphlets to lottery tickets) as well as collections of laws and decrees relating to matters such as urbanization, planning regulations, sanitation, and water supply. There is also an outstanding collection of maps and prints, and an exceptional run of official almanacs (Kalendarios and Guias oficiales) which extends from 1742 to 1926, and is virtually complete between 1770 and 1910.

With its emphasis on the social history of Spanish cities, particularly Madrid, the Eliot-Phelips Collection covers an area of scholarly interest which is not strongly represented in other research collections in the UK. The Collection is widely regarded to be the best in its field outside Madrid and holds many rare and unique items (see http://www.ull.ac.uk/specialcollections/ep/index.shtml).

The Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature

The Goldsmiths' Library covers economic literature very broadly, from incunabula to the early 20th century. It is strongest in works illustrating the development of economic thought in the British Isles and France in the period 1700-1850. The holdings for the preceding period are also exceptional; in fact, the Goldsmiths' Library is simply the best collection in its field in the world. The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain and North America are also well represented. The collection covers financial and monetary policy, agriculture, early English and French socialism, slavery, trade, guilds, transport (particularly railway history), the temperance movement and the condition of the people generally. There are a number of copies from the libraries or, otherwise associated with, Adam Smith, Arthur Young, Richard Oastler. John Baker Holroyd, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham and William Cobbett to name but a few. To quote the assessment of John Maynard Keynes (since whose time the collection has been vastly enlarged) the Goldsmiths' Library is a collection, “such as never can be collected again”. It has since been vastly augmented. In the integrated research stacks there also exists extensive holdings of complementary materials.

Porteus Library

The library of Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, (1731-1808) was housed at Fulham Palace until its deposit at the University Library in 1958. The collection is composed of approximately 4,000 volumes, including 300 volumes of pamphlets covering ecclesiastical affairs, and a wide range of other subjects such as slavery, the French Revolution, travel and topography, mostly published between 1750-1809. There are also a few earlier books and a later collection, mainly volumes of sermons and charges, added by William Howley.

The research significance of this collection has been brought out in an article by D.T. Richnell, a previous Librarian of the ULL:

“The cumulation and juxtaposition of the books and pamphlets on all the varied subjects that an influential churchman of the period had to concern himself with, or was passionately interested in, in the end provides a vivid picture of the background and mental climate of his age, or at any rate one stratum of the society of the age”.

The items relating to slavery and the slave trade, the subject of a separate manuscript catalogue, compiled by or for Porteus himself, are most frequently consulted by researchers. Other subjects covered in the pamphlet holdings of the Porteus Library include the American Revolution, India, the Union with Ireland, the Regency and the French Revolution.

Mode of cataloguing

The University of London Library currently catalogues to AACR2 standards, using UKMARC. It is envisaged that the ULL will move to cataloguing by MARC21 in the next 12 months. Rare books and Special Collections are catalogued with reference to the Library of Congress Descriptive Cataloguing of Rare Books.

Information on provenance and binding is included in many records. Entries are added for the names of significant former owners.

Forms of name for personal and corporate authors, and subject headings, follow Library of Congress authority files as far as possible. Where a personal name does not appear in the LC authority files, and no dates have been located for the person concerned, titles and epithets have been used as qualifiers.

Recommendations for searching

The majority of name headings follow NACO practice, but it is necessary to search different possible forms of names, especially for people with double-barrelled names or titles of nobility.

Titles are more easily searched by individual title words; title phrase searching is difficult unless the exact form is known.

Most but not all records have Library of Congress subject headings (in American English).

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 resources/hpb/content/university_of_london_library_london.1377248994.txt.gz · Last modified: 2013/08/23 11:09 by baldwin

 

 

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