About Special Collections & Archives
Find out more about who we are, what we do and our policies and procedures.
What we do
Special Collections and Archives contributes to the Library's core purpose by collecting, preserving, promoting and providing access to rare or unique and distinctive books and archives. These resources are made available not only to our own University staff and students, but to researchers from other institutions and to the wider community. They are also of key importance in supporting our vibrant and award-winning education outreach programme for local schools.
We seek external recognition and validation for the regional, national and international significance of our core collections and seek to bring them to the attention of the widest possible audience. We achieve this through effective collection management, increasing accessibility, particularly via digital media, and through engagement and outreach activities.
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Policies and procedures
The Special Collections and Archives team is dedicated to acquiring, preserving, promoting and facilitating the widest possible access to our collections. To learn more about the principles that guide this work, please follow the links to our policy documents.
- Collection Development Policy; a statement of our current collecting strategy.
- Preservation Policy; the principles that are integral to our preservation activities.
- Digital Preservation Policy; a statement on how we seek to preserve digitised and "born digital" material in our care.
- Document Handling Guidelines; how you can help us to preserve our collections.
- Conditions of Loan for Exhibitions; the conditions that you will be expected to meet if you wish to borrow collection items for display.
- Oral History Policy; concerns the development of an oral history archive at Newcastle University Special Collections.
If you would like to borrow material from our collections for an exhibition, please first of all read through the Conditions of Loan for Exhibitions guidance above. Applications for the loan of items should be submitted at least three months in advance, using the Application for Exhibition Loan Form.