St Peters House Library has a Special Collection located on the ground floor containing rare, valuable, and delicate books, illustrated books, artists’ books and handmade items.
All items can be consulted within the library during opening hours.
The collection can be searched online using the library catalogue - to search for just material held in the Special Collection use the search loantype:"spec coll" and add your keywords alongside them. For example: loantype:"spec coll" wonder* will return the books Alice in Wonderland and other books.
St Peters House Library also has a large microform collection containing a wide range of historic material. Material can be viewed and print or electronic copies made using the digital microform reader / scanner. For a full list of the collection content see here.
The University of Brighton Design Archives is an internationally significant research base with a curatorial team that initiates and promotes collaborative activity through a programme of projects. Browse the archive here.
On the 1st floor of St Peters House Library you will find filing cabinets and shelves containing original retail catalogues from the 1970s to the 1990s, plus original men’s, women’s and lifestyle magazines from the 1960s to the 1990s.
The catalogues are filed alphabetically by subject area.
If you are interested in using archives from across the UK, the best place to start is the Archives Hub. It lets you search across descriptions of archives held at more than 250 UK institutions.
Rare Books at Jubilee Library
Jubilee Library has a rare books room. They have a rare materials membership scheme which is separate from their public library service. To sign up for a rare books membership, you will need to provide two passport sized photos, and proof of your signature and address.
The Keep is an centre for archives providing public access to the following local collections:
The Keep also houses records from the Sussex Family History Group and the East Sussex Historic Environment Record (ESHER); a database of archaeological sites, finds and historic monuments in East Sussex and Brighton & Hove.
This resource is designed to support the discovery of documents relating to black British history within The National Archives’ collections. The term ‘black British history’ in this context refers to records relating to British citizens of African and African-Caribbean descent
Find out more about Black History Collections in the IHR Wohl Library. We collect historical sources and guides to finding and using sources. This page also shows examples from the collections.
Black Cultural Archives is the only national heritage centre dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the histories of African and Caribbean people in Britain.