New collections: widening the range of our digital archives

13 Oct 2025

We have recently enhanced and expanded our digital archives collections, increasing content across both the sciences and humanities.

Mirrors and glass panels form an angular, kaleidoscopic chamber with a square op

Significant developments include the completion of a number of online portfolios, notably the high-quality reference material of the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia series and the wide-ranging Global Issues Library, which now extends to incorporate Aging in the Modern World and World Events and the Media.

Newspaper additions

Our newspaper coverage has also been updated, with access to backfiles of the principal UK broadsheets extended into the 2020s, and the acquisition of The Mail on Sunday archive (1982-2011). Additionally, with the purchase of the second and final instalment of the 17th and 18th century Burney newspapers collection, the Library’s digital reach now stretches back to the beginnings of the newspaper as we know it. This recent release also offers greatly improved image quality on its 2007 predecessor.

Many of our digital thematic clusters have been supplemented. To those centring on the rich and varied archives of major scientific organisations (RGS, Royal Society, BAAS etc) we have now added the Royal Anthropological Institute Society archive. Similarly, our extensive collection of popular magazines now incorporates backfiles of The Observer Magazine (1964-2003) and the complete Women’s Magazines Archive.

Humanitarian collections

We are also pleased to introduce further new collections to support the University’s longstanding commitment to furthering the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and our role as a Northern humanitarianism powerhouse, with the acquisition of the Red Cross and Red Crescent archive.

Ongoing collection mapping relating to our position as National Research Library in the North has informed the purchase of digital versions of primary source material to significantly boost our resources from the British Online Archives. Alongside these, the newly released Nineteenth Century Stage archive includes a selection of material digitised from the Performing Arts Collections at the Rylands. The presence of our own material in such a collection testifies to the global importance of our physical holdings, whilst the acquisition of the complete online resource further expands the Library’s complementary digital reserves for researchers.

Find out more

Look out for further information and promotion of a number of these exciting new resources over the coming months. In the meantime, you can explore our collections via Library Search and Manchester Digital Collections.