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.

The Marine Technology Special Collection (MTSC), is a unique historical resource of marine technical documents from British shipbuilding, including the less well documented marine engine building, ship repairing, and ship breaking industries. The collection spans the mid-19th century to 2000, with an emphasis on North East England. The collection includes company documents, technical publications and ‘British Shipbuilding Database’, which is a database of 80,000 British-built ships of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Newcastle University has made a significant contribution to this industrial heritage, while its School of Marine Science and Technology is renowned throughout the world. For over a century, it has played a leading role in the teaching and research of the marine technologies including naval architecture, shipbuilding, and marine engineering.

The MTSC, formerly managed by the School of Marine Science and Technology was transferred to the University Library in September 2024. Visit MTSC’s website to find out more details. https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/about-us/facilities/marine/

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).

A collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century children's books (fiction and non-fiction).

A collection of children’s books. The books were published between 1596 and 1889, with the majority having been printed in the mid-Nineteenth Century.

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 collection features 37 early 20th century first editions of short stories and novels by writer and activist Eleanor Luisa Haverfield: most are signed first editions and bear presentation inscriptions, very often addressed either to the author’s sister Dorothy or to other women.

In the 1970s, Book Trust (now Booktrust) and Arts Council Great Britain (now Arts Council England), recognising that Britain is a world leader in children’s publishing, worked with the nation’s publishers of children’s books to establish the Booktrust collection. The Booktrust collection was conceived and developed as an informal deposit library with children’s publishers agreeing to send books as they become available. The Collection has grown so that it now totals some 70,000 volumes, including new titles, reprints, existing books in new formats and books in translation.

In 2004 the Collection was transferred to Newcastle University’s Robinson Library (now the Philip Robinson Library). Bringing the Collection to Newcastle meant that it became part of the partnership between the University and Seven Stories: National Centre for Children’s Books (https://www.sevenstories.org.uk/).

This collection continues to grow thanks to the past and ongoing commitment and generosity of the UK publishing industry. Many publishers have been involved since the collection was created in the 1970s, and recent contributors include: Child's Play, Tate, O'Brien, Lantana and Macmillan.

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.

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.