This collection of c. 250 dictionaries consists of a 1916 bequest by R. Oliver Heslop, philologist and antiquary, together with a few later additions. It includes Baret's Alvearie (1580), Florio's Worlde of Wordes (1598 and 1611), Minsheu's Guide into Tongues (1625 and 1627), the works of such lexicographers as Bullokar, Coles, Holyoake and Johnson, and an almost complete set of the publications of the English Dialect Society.

This collection also contains papers comprising Heslop's research material for his work Northumberland Words, published by the English Dialect Society in 1892-1894.

The Library of Heversham Grammar School in Westmorland. The Library was intended for the use of neighbouring clergy as well as for the masters and pupils of the School, and books were also given by local gentry and former pupils. Two MSS. Catalogues, compiled abound 1800, show that the Library then consisted of 600 volumes, of which about 450 survive. The collection consists mainly of editions of classical or theological authors, with approximately half of the volumes having been printed before 1700 and a few before 1600.

This small collection comprises books which were produced in the infancy of the art of printing, and specifically before 1500. The collection includes such works as the Epistolae of St. Jerome, printed in Palma in 1480, Opus de peste, a tract on plague printed in Bologna in 1478, and the first printed book on architecture, Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria (1485).

With three early twentieth century exceptions, the Indian Tracts is a collection of nineteenth century pamphlets on a range of Indian subjects, such as local self-government, the Indian Civil Service, education, politics, economics, transport, the trade of opium, religion and war.

Books published by independent publisher IRON Press based in Cullercoats. Includes copies of IRON magazine which ran from 1973 and 1997 publishing art work, reviews, short stories and poetry. The book collection comprises of poetry, fiction and drama and is particularly strong in work from local authors.

Kepier Grammar School was opened by Queen Elizabeth I in 1574 and closed in 1933. The books from its library consist mainly of seventeenth and eighteenth-century works on classics and theology. As well as the classical authors (Euclid, Homer, Cicero, Tacitus, Plutarch, Xenophon et al.), many of the stock authors of the Eighteenth Century are represented: David Hume, Tobias Smollett, Joseph Addison, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, George Lyttleton, Jonathan Swift, Matthew Prior, Alexander Pope and (from the Seventeenth Century) John Locke. Several volumes bear the bookplate of Thomas Griffith, whilst one of the school's governors, Ralph Robinson, presented sixty six volumes to the school in 1742. Valerius Maximus' Cum commento Oliuerii Arzignanensis Vicentini (1500) contains the inscriptions of several former pupils with the dictum: “when you see this remember me“.

This collection of books details colonial accounts of exploration, excavation and cultural comparison of areas of the world encompassing modern day Iraq, Iran (formerly known under terms: Nineveh, Persia, Babylonia), Turkey and Russia. There are published works of a military political nature regarding Russia and Turkey. Additionally, there are some travel accounts along west coastal Africa. A smaller collection of published material is dedicated to autobiographical accounts of Austen Henry Layard, up until his ambassadorship in Madrid.

L.T. Meade (1854-1914) was the Irish daughter of a Protestant clergyman who later moved to London. She contributed short stories and articles to magazines such as The Strand Magazine and edited the periodical Atlanta but became better-known for her novels. She tried her hand at several genres, including crime fiction, but is most closely associated with stories which targeted a female audience, notably stories about girls' schools.

Meade wrote approximately 250 books and we have about 180 in our holdings which were published from 1878 and as recently as 2003. Titles include: The autocrat of the nursery, The children of Wilton Chase, Kitty O'Donovan, and The Scamp family. The collection was gifted to the Library by Jean Garriock.

This is a collection of over 2000 volumes and hundreds of pamphlets, covering the history of medicine and a broad range of medical subjects. The collection is rich in seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth-century works.

It includes books from the medical library of noted South Shields doctor T.M. Winterbottom (1766-1859), and highlights include Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia (1794), John Abercrombie's Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord (1828), considered to have been the first textbook on Neuropathology, and several works by the famed botanist, humanist and physician Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738).

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.