This collection represents the historical portion of the Library of Appleby Grammar School in Cumbria (formerly in the old county of Westmorland) and has been deposited on indefinite loan. The nucleus of the collection was the personal library of an early headmaster of the school, Reginald Bainbrigg [1545-1612?].Books in this collection range in publication date from the Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. The collection can be searched on the library's catalogue and there is also a printed catalogue by the late Edgar Hinchcliffe, formerly a master at the school, available from the Special Collections reading room.The collection contains predominantly classical, theological, literary and historical works, as well as a number of early sixteenth-century English bindings. There are many sixteenth-century editions of works by classical authors, such as Cicero, while other highlights include several works by the English philosopher and enlightenment thinker John Locke and a 1561 Basel imprint of Martin Luther's Quaestionum Sacrarum.

This collection of books was given to the Library by Gertrude Bell's brother Maurice (1871-1944), most of which previously belonged to Sir Hugh and Sir Lowthian Bell (respectively their father and grandfather) who were both industrialists. The collection consists of approximately 500 books and is strongest in economics and industry, particularly coal-mining, railways and chemistry but also including iron, steel, explosives and oyster fisheries.Included are Beckly, H. The bankers' panic: a letter to the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, M.P., First Lord of the Treasury (1875), Hole, J. The homes of the working classes, with suggestions for their improvement (1866) and works by two prominent women - the writer on science, mathematics and astronomy, Mary Somerville's Physical geography (1858) and one of the leaders of the suffrage movement, Millicent Garrett Fawcett's Political economy for beginners (1876).

The Bell-White Collection comprises printed and manuscript items which had been assembled by keen collectors John (1783-1864) and Thomas (1785-1860) Bell in the Nineteenth Century, some of which material had subsequently been purchased by fellow collector, Robert White (1802-1874). The collection focuses on local history and is a particularly good resource for local political history as it includes election addresses, squibs, broadsides and bills. Local poetry and songs are also represented.There is also a large collection of genealogical material relating to local families which contain documents relating to business concerns, deaths, events, honours, household matters, legal affairs, property, sales, social lives and occupations, as well as containing family pedigrees, illustrations and correspondence.

Bloodaxe Books authors and books have won virtually every major literary award given to poetry, including the T.S. Elliot Prize, Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize. Bloodaxe is also known for its work with translated collections and American poetry, and have published responsively to cultural change in Britain, publishing some of the finest writers in the British-Caribbean and South-Asian diaspora. Another significant achievement is that Bloodaxe publish more female writers than any other British poetry publisher, at a 50:50 male:female ratio. This collection consists of the books published by Bloodaxe Books including poetry and prose.

In the 1970s, Book Trust (now Booktrust) and Arts Council Great Britain (now Arts Council England), recognising that Britain is a world leader in children’s publishing, worked with the nation’s publishers of children’s books to establish the Booktrust collection. The Booktrust collection was conceived and developed as an informal deposit library with children’s publishers agreeing to send books as they become available. The Collection has grown so that it now totals some 70,000 volumes, including new titles, reprints, existing books in new formats and books in translation.

In 2004 the Collection was transferred to Newcastle University’s Robinson Library (now the Philip Robinson Library). Bringing the Collection to Newcastle meant that it became part of the partnership between the University and Seven Stories: National Centre for Children’s Books (https://www.sevenstories.org.uk/).

This collection continues to grow thanks to the past and ongoing commitment and generosity of the UK publishing industry. Many publishers have been involved since the collection was created in the 1970s, and recent contributors include: Child's Play, Tate, O'Brien, Lantana and Macmillan.

The Bradshaw Collection contains books published 1601-1700 and is notable for its English Revolution, or Civil War, tracts, of which there are about sixty mostly describing local events, such as The Taking of Gateshead Hill: and blocking up of Newcastle … (1644), A Terrible and bloudy fight at Tinmouth Castle on Fryday last … (1648) and The King's declaration at Newcastle concerning his refusall to come to the parliament of England … (1647). Some of these are illustrated, often with wood-cut portraits.Other subjects represented in the collection include theology and some literature. Classical works, in Latin and Greek, by such authors as Catullus, Pliny, Virgil and Juvenal; Aristophanes, Dionysius and Euripides make up a large portion of the collection. The collection also has volume I of Edmund Gibson's English translation of William Camden's Britannia (1695), the first (Latin) edition of which had been the first comprehensive study of Britain.

The Bradshaw-Bewick Collection contains works by and relating to the engraver Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). Bewick was born at Cherryburn, near Mickley, Northumberland and his early interest in drawing, under the tuition of the Reverend C. Gregson, was later developed when he was apprenticed under the Newcastle engraver, Ralph Beilby. He was to become a master craftsman.Bewick had a particular fascination with the natural world and this is reflected in works such as A general history of quadrupeds (1790) and History of British birds (1797). The collection is strong in Bewick's other main area of interest - morals and fables. His Select fables (1784) was immediately popular and ran into several editions but he worked on many small moral instruction books, such as Youth's instructive and entertaining story-teller (1778) and The looking-glass for the mind (1792).