This is a small collection comprising 26 volumes of printed music and books about music, dating from the Eighteenth and early-Nineteenth Centuries, from the library of the late Hugh Vernon (d. 1975), including An account of the musical performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon: May 26th, 27th, 29th; and June the 3d, and 5th, 1784. In commemoration of Handel by Charles Burney (1785) and the undated The Cuckoo: A Pastoral Ballad set by Mr Arne, Sung at Vauxhall by Mrs Weichsel [Mrs Frederika Weichsel is recorded as having performed at Vauxhall Gardens, London, and was reportedly a pupil of J.S. Bach].

The Wallis Collection contains books on mathematics and maths education and includes works by Robert Record (the man who introduced the = symbol), such as The grounde of artes: teaching the perfecte worke and practise of arithmetike (1582) and works by and about Isaac Newton, such as Newton's Principia in its first American edition (1846).

The books were formerly owned by Peter Wallis (1918-1992), a lecturer in the School of Education. There are almanacs, works on algebra and geometry, school text books, works on astronomy including J.F.W. Herschel's Astronomy (1835), guides to measuring, book-keeping, ready reckoners, treatises, Euclid's Elements and manuals.

The Walmsley (Anne) Collection is named for the person that formerly owned the books. It contains poetry and prose by Caribbean and black British writers, including Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott (the Nobel Prize for Literature winner), Olive Senior and Samuel Selvon. Some of the books contain additional material such as correspondence and some of the books are inscribed to Anne by the authors.

The White Collection, named after Robert White (1802-1874) was presented to King's College (now Newcastle University) by his great nephew George White Pickering. It is a rich source of literature as well as being strong in ecclesiastical and local history such as James Raine's writings on local history and antiquities.

There are works by John Dryden, William Hazlitt, Thomas Hood, James Thomson, Robert Burns, Mark Akenside, Thomas Chatterton, John Gay, H.W. Longfellow, Matthew Prior, John Keats, John Milton, James Hogg, John Clare, Edgar Allan Poe, George Herbert, William Cowper, Thomas Gray and the poems of Ossian as well as several works by S.T. Coleridge, including Aids to reflection (1848), Biographia literaria (1817), Confessions of an inquiring spirit (1849) and The friend (1850). Alongside the work of these distinguished authors sit English and Scottish ballads, garlands and chapbooks including some which were printed in Newcastle.