The Rare Books collection is miscellaneous but literature and local history are two of the collections strengths. Items date from the mid-Sixteenth Century to the present day (facsimile of The Arundel Choirbook, 2003). Particularly notable items include a German propaganda sheet which was dropped on England in 1940: Adolf Hitler, A last appeal to reason; Edward Jenner's Inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolæ vaccinæ (1798); various works by Charles Dickens which remain in their original serialised parts, complete with paper wrappers; herbals by Elizabeth Blackwell (1739) and Nicholas Culpepper (1802); a volume of printed ephemera, broadsides, posters and cartoons referring to elections in Northumberland, Newcastle and Tyneside divisions, including cartoons of Joseph Cowen (1826-1931) as well as some English Revolution (or Civil War) tracts and the manuscript Design no. 11 - Plans, specifications and estimates for building a chapel in the township of St. John, Newcastle upon Tyne by John Dobson (1840).

The Pybus Collection, originally brought together by the esteemed local medic and surgeon Professor Frederick Charles Pybus (1883-1975), is rich in material relating to the history of medicine. The collection consists chiefly of some 2000 volumes which are mostly classics of the history of medicine, with particular reference to anatomy, surgery and medical illustration.

Highlights are Gilles de Corbeil's De Pulsibus (1494), the first printed book on the pulse, as well as a 1648 edition of William Harvey's celebrated work Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in which he published his discoveries about the motion of the heart and blood. There is also a 1555 edition of one of the most important and influential books in the history of medicine, De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Andreas Versalius. Most of the other celebrated anatomists are represented here too, as well as later pioneers and experts.

The Pybus collection also includes engravings, portraits, busts, holographic letters and a set of bleeding bowls (currently housed at the Walton Library).

The Post-incunabula collection does not strictly comply with the prescribed date range which often defines 'post-incunabula' but does contain English and foreign books printed 1501-1640. It includes works by John Stow, John Speed, Torquato Tasso and William Tynedale, as well as Robert Burton's The anatomy of melancholy, 4th ed. (1632), Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), Reginald Scot's The discouerie of witchcraft (1584), Palladio's architectural work I qvattro libri dell'architettvra (1581), Edmund Spenser's The faerie queene (1590-96) and Thomas Heywood's The hierarchie of the blessed angells (1635).

The Pollard Collection was brought together by Mr Eric Pollard and was purchased from the family with support from the Friends of the University Library in 2011. It focuses on the author, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) being particularly rich in early editions of his works. The collection includes a series of short stories, published as 'The Railway Library', which made Kipling's name as a writer in India, England and America. There are also many of his classic novels and works of children's literature such as Puck of Pook's Hill. During the First World War, Kipling devoted his writing to the war effort and this is represented in the collection too. Besides printed books the Pollard Collection includes cuttings and ephemera relating to Kipling as well as 16 colour folio plates by the artists Maurice and Edward Detmold, produced to illustrate the 1908 Macmillan octavo edition of The Jungle Book.

A collection of 20th century British and American authors, including avant-garde local author Barry MacSweeney and “Black Mountain poet” Robert Creeley: the ephemeral and rare nature of the “hasty editions” and the presentation inscriptions attest to the authors’ closeness with Ric and Annie Caddel, whose Pig Press played an important part in the British Poetry Revival.

A rich collection of mainly Anglo-American poetry with authors’ presentation inscriptions which offer a glimpse into the vast interpersonal network of relationships which Tom Pickard established around the Morden Tower venue over four decades with modernist poets including Basil Bunting, Barry MacSweeney and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

The Napoleon Collection contains books written in French as well as English language materials, published in the Twentieth Century with the exception of three nineteenth-century items. The books relate to Napoleon (1769-1821), the Napoleonic Wars and to the French empire and include 'notes and reminiscences' as well as histories.

This collection of 71 books focuses on texts about the Holocaust: it includes historical analyses, literary works (Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi), autobiographies, diaries and works centred around specific extermination camps and perpetrators trials.

The Merz Collection is the mathematical library of John Theodore Merz (1840-1922), an electrical engineer. Merz also had an interest in philosophy, and the collection also includes books amassed by him during the writing of his work The History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century. These 4000 volumes are strongest in Mathematics and the History of European Thought, but also include notable works on science, European history and German Literature.A particular highlight is An investigation of the laws of thought: on which are founded the mathematical theories of logic and probabilities (1854) by George Boole, the English mathematician and philosopher, and inventor of Boolean logic, the basis of modern digital computer logic.The collection is also of interest for its book-bindings: mostly leather or half-leather bindings by Zaehnsdorf of London.

The medical tracts contain a series of 129 bound volumes of pamphlets relating to medical matters. These matters include, but are not limited to, addresses from the Royal College of Physicians, along with new research and hypotheses about ailments, symptoms, consequences and cures. There is also a small collection of 'History of Medicine' quarterly magazines, and the occasional instance of a stand alone pamphlet, such as 'Four Centuries of Anatomy,' by Frederick Pybus, A professional biography of William Harvey, and the '1st spasmodic cholera epidemic in York,' published by the Borthwick Institute, York.