This is a collection of approximately 600 pamphlets and short publications on world affairs in the Twentieth Century. Many themes are covered, including politics, economics, civil liberty, democracy and religion, and many of the countries of the world feature. Examples of titles in the collection are Full employment in a free society; I was a Franco Soldier; The hydrogen bomb and you; What the Arab World really wants; The Basques and the Communists; British policy in the Far East; Two Sides in Germany: Which is yours?; Youth and Anti-Semitism; Haile Salassie: the Plea for Ethiopia; Japanese Naval expansion; Chinese Women and the War; and Banking in Soviet Russia. Many prominent figures are represented as authors, including Marx and Engels, Kropotkin and Liu Shao-Chi.

The Cowen Tracts are almost two thousand pamphlets which were formerly owned by local (radical) M.P., Joseph Cowen (1829-1900). The tracts date mostly from the mid- to late-Nineteenth Century and reflect Cowen's interest in the social, educational, political and economic issues of the day.

There is some earlier material, such as Deed of incorporation for the insurance of ships printed by T. Angus, St. Nicholas' Church-Yard, Newcastle (1778). Pamphlets were an effective form of public debate because they could be circulated to a wider audience than books and authors could remain anonymous. The Cowen Tracts discuss Irish politics, foreign policy, women's rights, religion, education and public health and include such titles as The Union programme for 1880: constructive, not destructive, Irish legislation [1879?], Are women fit for politics?: are politics fit for women [185-] and The education of the agricultural labourer: a paper read before the Morpeth Chamber of Agriculture, on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1870 by M.W. Ridley (1870).

The Grey Tracts reflect the interests of their former owner, the 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1845) whose Whig government was responsible for the 1832 Reform Act, 1833 Factory Act and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. The pamphlets cover a broad range of historical, social and economic subjects including colonial policy, public finance and banking, the Corn Laws and agriculture, poor relief, slavery, Catholicism, Ireland and the Greek Revolution.

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.

The Robert Spence Watson Collection is a collection of 500 volumes on the subject of English literature, consisting largely of the publications of literary societies such as the Shakespeare Society, the Spenser Society, the Ballad Society and the Chaucer Society, presented to the Library in 1908 by Robert Spence Watson, who was also one of the founders of the Durham College of Physical Science, and President of Armstrong College.