The collection includes monographs and journal issues featuring Brendan Cleary’s poetry, as well as works by other poets whose work was published in The Echo Room - the poetry magazine which he edited - and by the associated venture Echo Room Press.

The papers of Jack Common (1900-1968) are a rich resource for those interested in the history of this talented Tyneside-born writer. They include published and unpublished typescripts and manuscripts of his work, including Kiddar's Luck, his fictionalised childhood autobiography, published in 1951. There are also Common's diaries, notebooks, research notes, news cuttings, correspondence and photographs.

The papers also include copies of articles and draft articles for his contribution to the socialist journals The Adelphi and New Britain. Correspondence to Jack Common includes letters from his friends George Orwell, E.M. Forster, Dorothy and Max Plowman, Richard and John Middleton Murry, Thomas McCullough and Connie Common, Jack's second wife. There is also correspondence from various publishers as well as from the BBC and Associated British Picture Corporation.

A collection of books and periodical issues which attest the poet’s publication history and personal connections within the British literary scene.

Consists of manuscripts, notes and correspondence relating to the adult mystery fiction published by Peter Dickinson.

Previously, the Library housed a printing room, with working presses, which operated as a small publisher under the imprint 'Eagle Press'. The Eagle Press Collection contains facsimile reprints of printing manuals dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, together with the press' publications.

Consists of editorial material relating to published works by Flambard Press. Also contains documents relating to the marketing of the company.

Books published by Flambard Press, independent publisher based in Hexham which ran from 1990 - 2014. Includes poetry, novels, short stories and non-fiction and is strong in work by local authors.

The Fletcher Collection of books bequeathed by Professor G.B.A. Fletcher (1903-1995) of the Department of Classics, contains antiquarian editions of classical texts, written in Latin, Ancient Greek and in English translations.

Recognised authors, such as Livy, Cicero, Terence, Virgil, Aeschylus, Tacitus and Sophocles are all represented. Some of the books were produced by the early printing houses, the Aldine and Elzevier presses.

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.