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Collections

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Focusing our attention on digital resources, archives and research collections, continuing to move away from a dependency on print. Moving from curating content to creating dynamic collections.

We have extensive print and digital collections, including specialist databases, special collections and archives and digital collections.

The library holds wide ranging and diverse collections, with hundreds of thousands of print and online books, and over 400 specialist databases, providing access to primary source materials, academic journals and expert subject resources. Unique archives, collections and rare books are available to access from our Special Collections and Archives, as well as through Lancaster Digital Collections.

Databases and primary source material

The library has an extensive collection of resource databases and primary source materials. Browse a selection of the resources we hold below and explore the full range in the A-Z of databases.

National Geographic magazine cover, part of the Gale primary sources collections

Gale Primary Sources

The Gale Primary Sources cross-search interface provides access to millions of pages of content spanning many centuries and geographic regions

View database (University members only)

We now have access to the Adam Matthew digital portfolio with AM explorer.

AM Explorer (Adam Matthew)

Award-winning collections of primary source materials spanning the social sciences and humanities from the 15th-21st centuries, developed in collaboration with leading libraries and archives.

View database

Black Thought and Culture

Black Thought and Culture

A landmark collection of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders, teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures, covering 250 years of history.

Access collection

British & Irish Women’s Letters & Diaries

This collection includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters, and includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years.

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries

Defining Gender

Explore gender through a vast body of British source material from the fifteenth to early twentieth century. Through correspondence, advice literature, periodicals, ephemera and government documents, traditional models of gender and contemporary perceptions of these can be explored.

Disability in a Modern World: A Social Movement

One person in seven experiences disability. This collection includes primary and secondary source materials to tell the story of the disability community and its contributions.

Disability in a Modern World: History of a Social Movement

LGBT Magazine Archive

Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests.

LGBT Magazine Archive

Sex & Sexuality

This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviours from the 19th to the 21st centuries.

Sex & Sexuality

Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice

Primary and secondary source materials relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice, covering an extensive time period from 1490.

Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice

Youth & Popular Culture

Showcases unique periodicals from 1940-present, highlighting topics and trends of youth culture such as fashion, rock and roll, sports, sexuality, dating, as well as youth portrayal in the media.

Youth & Popular Culture

Unique and Distinctive Collections

Special Collections and Archives

Special Collections and Archives, located in the Archives Research Centre, hold over 15,000 rare books, thousands of postcards and photographs and archives related to Lancaster University and the wider region. 

Special Collections and Archives
Extract of a letter from James Satterthwaite to his mother.

Lancaster Digital Collections

Lancaster Digital Collections shares and preserves unique and distinctive visual and multimedia collections created by Lancaster University and its partners. Our ambition is to provide diverse digital collections through partnership, and to make them openly available for all to explore, use and benefit from.

Lancaster Digital Collections
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Leisure reading area with comfortable reading chairs with shelves of fiction books.

Leisure reading

Our leisure reading area, located on A floor of the library, holds a range of fiction and non-fiction print books that anyone can loan, with seating to take a break, read and relax.

To complement the print collection, University members have access to the Overdrive digital service, providing eBook and AudioBook collections including wellbeing and self-help titles, comics and graphic novels, International Booker Prize winners, science fiction and fantasy.

Browse titles online or download the Libby app and sign in using University username and password.

All students and staff are encouraged to recommend titles to be added to both collections. eBooks and AudioBooks can be recommended to the library within Overdrive, and print titles can be recommended via the Request a Resource form.

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New Guide on Open Access Books now Available from Lancaster University Library

Lancaster University Library has launched a new guide to support authors interested in publishing open access books, monographs, book chapters, and edited collections. 
Portrait of Sir Humphry Davy by H.W. Pickersgill 1831 and courtesy of the Royal Institution

Davy Notebooks now available on Lancaster Digital Collections

A new collection of previously unpublished notebooks by the scientist Sir Humphrey Davy have been made available on Lancaster Digital Collections 
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New Research Data Sharing and Archiving Policy

The Library is happy to announce the launch of Lancaster University’s Research Data Sharing and Archiving Policy, which replaces the pre-existing Research Data Management Policy.
Screen grab of the Digimap website homepage.

Upcoming Digimap Training in 2024

Join one of the upcoming Digimap training sessions in October and November.
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Lancaster University Library receives Open Library of Humanities Open Access Award

Lancaster University Library has been announced as one of three winners of the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) Open Access Award 2024.  
A man working on a computer at a desk.

Updated Leganto User Interface

You will see a change to Leganto with a new user interface (the Resource List platform) from the 5th August 2024. 

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