The Friends Collection has been built-up through purchases with funds from the Friends of the Library. It contains such rare books as Robert Boyle's Tracts: containing I. Suspicions about some hidden qualities of the air … (1674), J. Dryden's Albion and Albanius (1691), Some considerations on the consequences of the French settling colonies on the Mississippi: with respect to the trade and safety of the English plantations in America and the West-Indies (1720), various pamphlets by Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, Newcastle songsters and other local material such as Report of the Orphan-House Sunday-School, Newcastle upon Tyne (1815-16). English literature is a particular strength of the collection.