University of Leeds Special Collections

University of Leeds Special Collections 

[University of Leeds](https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections/) website 

The Brotherton Library is accessed from the Parkinson Building. The door is open between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. Outside of those hours, you can access by swiping your membership card in the card reader to the left of the entrance, or by pressing the buzzer. 

External readers are required to register on their first visit with identification showing their name, address and signature. 

There are four libraries on campus providing a range of study environments, including flexible group study areas and silent individual study spaces. You can visit Special Collections in the Brotherton Library to view items in person. You can search our collections online. You can view the images of the many items that are digitised. The architects of the Brotherton Library were Lanchester, Lucas and Lodge, who submitted the winning designs for a new campus as part of the University's Architectural Prize Scheme of 1927. The library was funded entirely by a hugely successful local industrialist and equally far-sighted philanthropist, Lord Brotherton of Wakefield. Sadly, he did not live to see the Brotherton Library's opening in 1936. Outwardly an unadorned redbrick building, the Brotherton Library was always intended to lie behind an imposing University frontage. This materialised in the form of the Parkinson Building, which opened in 1951. The Brotherton's round, domed reading room was deliberately modelled on that of the British Museum, but, with Yorkshire bravura, a slightly increased diameter ensured that it was larger than the southern original. Above the reading room entrance, carved in oak, sits the University's coat of arms. It features a book inscribed with the University's motto:"et augebitur scienti" –"and knowledge will be increase". In 1993, every book in the Brotherton was moved to allow readers into the new West Building extension (formal opening in 1995). 

The Special Collections Research Centre is open to a limited number of researchers for in-person visits. Special Collections is the home of hundreds of thousands of rare books, manuscripts, archives and art. Our collections offer a rich resource for staff, students and the wider research community. The Special Collections Research Centre is on level 4 of the Brotherton Library, on the upper floor of the main reading room. 

Virtual consultations and a quick photo service are available to University of Leeds researchers. 

The Library has a wheelchair-height gate at the entrance outside the School of Chemistry. An accessible lift is available in the building. All libraries have extensive computer facilities and wi-fi throughout for your devices and laptops.