Our popular collections

Law and Government

Current and historical resources spanning the history of UK law and government, including law reports, legal texts, commentaries and legislation.

Community Information

Resources from key agencies and publishers, providing answers and support to help you make decisions affecting your daily life. Topics cover finance, benefits and the law.

Literature and Literary Collection

Literature resources from around the world covering all aspects of writing, including significant collections about Shakespeare, poetry and children’s literature.

Newspapers

Historical collection of local and national newspapers dating back to the mid 18th century available on microfilm, plus original copies of particular titles and periods in history. You will find copies of today’s papers in the Knowledge Library on level 2.

Music

One of the UK’s most important music collections, with an impressive range of specialist recordings, scores and books on music, including a unique historical collection of Birmingham-related music materials.

Archives & Heritage

An internationally significant collection of archives and rare books. There are thousands of individual collections, dating from the 12th century to the present day, including the world’s most important archive of the Industrial Revolution, the Boulton & Watt Archive.

Photography

An internationally important collection comprising millions of images from the earliest days of photography to the present day, including the Warwickshire Photographic collection documenting the changing face of Birmingham since the 19th century.

World History

Over 8,000 books spanning world history with many major themes including leadership and European conflict.