The Library Hub team is excited to announce that the Discover service now contains the catalogue records of over 200 libraries! This is a significant milestone in increasing the coverage of Discover, which includes national, university and specialist libraries across the UK.
New libraries on Discover
We’ve just added several new library catalogues: the Museum of London, University of Chester, National Maritime Museum Caird Library, Salisbury Cathedral, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Medway Libraries.
Museum of London
The Library holds around 30,000 volumes (including monographs, periodicals and maps) and covers subjects of interest to the museum such as the history and archaeology of London, museum studies and conservation, fashion, decorative and fine arts, social history. The Library has over 5,000 rare books, including some important individual collections: the Bell Collection on the Great Plague and Great Fire; the Tangye Collection of Cromwelliana; the Warwick Wroth Collection of scrapbooks on Vauxhall Gardens and South London Pleasure Gardens; the Harry Matthews Collection of fashion books and periodicals; and the Mary Young Papers, household accounts of an early 19th century middle-class family.
Find out more about the library on their Discover information page.
University of Chester
University of Chester libraries hold over 300,000 printed books and journals across seven site libraries. They also provide access to over 65,000 online journals and over a million e-books across all subject areas.
Find out more about the library on their Discover information page.
National Maritime Museum Caird Library
The world’s largest maritime library and archive collection is comprised of printed material, maps and charts and prints and drawings. When His Majesty King George VI officially opened the National Maritime Museum in 1937, the Caird Library was ready to welcome researchers. Now known as part of Royal Museums Greenwich, it is situated within the surroundings of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site.
Find out more about the library on their Discover information page.
Salisbury Cathedral Library
Salisbury Cathedral Library was established in the late eleventh century to support the study of the Cathedral priests. In 1445 it moved to its present, purpose-built, location above the cloister. Today the collection consists of about 200 manuscripts, dating from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, and about 10,000 early printed books, dating from 1473 to 1900. There are 43 incunabula, and many rare items. Many of the books are still in their original bindings. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, with particular strengths in theology, science, history, and classics. In addition to the historic collection, there is a modern reference and pamphlet collection, containing material about the Salisbury Cathedral, the city, and the diocese.
Find out more about the library on their Discover information page.
Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) is a major UK science and engineering institution and a registered charity governed by a Royal Charter. IOM3 supports professionals in materials, minerals, mining and associated technical disciplines to become heroes of the transition to a low-carbon, resource efficient society, not villains. We seek to be the best professional membership body we can be by providing modern, flexible services, quality technical content and value for money. Our activities promote and develop all aspects of the Materials Cycle, from exploration and extraction, to characterization, processing and application, to product recycling, repurposing and reuse.
The Library is considered to be a major member benefit and a significant UK, if not worldwide, collection. Based at Grantham, it houses several collections, many historic, including books, conferences, journals, reference works, reports and maps. Subjects covered are ceramics, composites, materials science and engineering, metals, minerals and mining, packaging, polymers and wood.
Find out more about the library on their Discover information page.
Medway Libraries
Drill Hall Library is a unique facility providing an integrated library and IT Service to staff and students from the University of Greenwich, the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University at their shared Medway Campus, collectively known as the Universities at Medway.
University of Greenwich has three campus libraries with stock to support all the subjects taught at the University. With nearly 131,000 printed books, more the 72,000 print and electronic journals and over 500,000 ebooks.
Canterbury Christ Church University has libraries at Canterbury, Medway and Salomons Institute containing study spaces and modern facilities to suit different working styles, with access to books, print journals, e-journals, e-books through LibrarySearch.
Rochester Cathedral Library is predominantly a theology library for use by the cathedral clergy from the Early Modern period until today. Also includes volumes from the Rochester Theological College (1959-1970).
Library of the Week
Since launching our ‘Library of the Week’ campaign last year, we’ve been so proud to have featured so many of our incredible contributing libraries and their collections! We’ve enjoyed showcasing new weekly posts written by our libraries, which has allowed us to widely promote the different collections and services offered by our amazing community.
Recent features have included:
Bishop Grosseteste University: Find out more about their incredible ‘Teaching Resources Collection.’ Designed to encourage a love of reading, the collection inspires joy, curiosity and imagination whilst supporting readers, trainee teachers and schools.
RHS Libraries: RHS Libraries’ collections support research and communicate knowledge to fulfil the RHS vision to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place. Find out more about the Royal Horticultural Society, their branch libraries, rare books, archives and much more.
Library and Learning Services, The University of Surrey: With a beautiful and thriving campus, the Library sits at its heart, supporting learning, teaching and research journeys. Find out more in this post written by Catherine Batson, Associate Director (Student Experience) at the University of Surrey.
Leeds Libraries: Read out more about their amazing Special Collections, events and exhibitions as well as the history of the beautiful Grade II* listed Central Library in this post written by Rhian Isaac at Leeds Libraries.
We’ve had a wonderful response to our promotion and would like to thank all of the libraries who have taken part so far. You can find all of the ‘Library of the Week’ posts on our blog and we will continue to promote these as far and wide as we can!
Future plans
More new library catalogues are due to be added and we’ll continue to develop the service. Much of our recent development work has been going on behind the scenes but we’ll be making improvements to the interface and adding functionality in coming months and years.
Explore the libraries’ collections on Discover
– Selecting the search code to the right of each library name on the Libraries list enables you search for all the records from an individual library.
– To browse or limit your search to the holdings of any library, or group of libraries, use Advanced Search to select the Libraries tab and choose the library name from the list of libraries.
