website: http://www.lib.gla.ac.uk/

The extensive collections of the University Library, one of the largest in Britain, date back over 500 years. From 1709-1836 the University Library was a legal deposit library and consequently has strong holdings for this period. Over 128,000 volumes relate to History and Archaeology. The Library's early printed manuscript and special collections are of international importance and the historical strengths of the Library's collections include early modern and modern publications and extensive official publications and statistics collections. University Library resources are complemented by archival collections held in The Whistler Centre, the repository for the Whistler collection of letters, papers, books and photographs and in The University Archives and Business Records Centre, the largest dedicated collection of business records in the world.

Modern printed collections

Current (selective) stock development policies support teaching and research in Archaeology; Celtic; History; Politics; Theology, Social Sciences; Literature, Theatre; Film and TV Studies; Fine Art and Music, particular strengths being politics and government and foreign relations. The historical collection includes for instance the Original Narratives of Early American History series (10 volumes; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907-1914) and the Library holds monographs gifted by or purchased from Sir Denis Brogan which reflect his wide-ranging interest in the cultural history, society, politics, foreign and international affairs and diplomacy of the United States in the mid-twentieth century. The Library aslso subscribes to the Presidential series edited by Robert A. Rutland et al. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984-).
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Early printed material & special collections (incl. music)

Of the Library's several special collections, of greatest relevance to North America is the Spencer Collection. The collection includes one hundred and nine items, mainly contemporary pamphlets, broadsides, maps, together with a few manuscripts, relating to the Darien Scheme, presented to the University of Glasgow by Mr John James Spencer in 1931.

Also of interest are the Christina Hunter Lawson Papers, the correspondence of Christina Hunter Lawson (1876-1963), an Edinburgh school teacher. The letters were mostly written to relatives who had emigrated to America and provide a fascinating snapshot of Edinburgh life from 1910-1963. Topics discussed include World War I, golf, school work, family holidays and the weather. The collection also includes some press cuttings and photographs.
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Manuscripts & archives

The Archives and Business Records Centre holds items of relevance to North America in the deposited collections of the 19th- and 20th-century papers of the following: Sir Hector James Hetherington, Thomas Ferguson, Archibald Allan Bowman, Viscount Sir Robert Horne MP, William Douglas Weir, 1st Viscount Weir of Eastwood, Frances Melville and Marsha Foot Crowe; the Napier Collection includes diaries and photographic material.

The Archives and Business Records Centre also holds business records which relate to North American companies operating in the UK or British companies dealing with North America, including merchants trading with the Americas in the 18th century and textile manufacturers, engineering, shipping and shipbuilding, publishing, manufacturing and commodities companies in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Archives and Business Records Centre education records include Records of Alumni at Glasgow University from the 1800s to date, an extensive collection of records relating to students, graduates and academics. From the 1800s American students have attended the University studying a wide range of subjects. There is a database available for matriculated students 1859-83.

Microform & audiovisual collections

The Library holds several primary source documents in microform. These include Foreign letters of the Continental Congress and the Department of State, 1785-1790; Despatches from United States ministers to China, 1843-1906 and Despatches from United States ministers to Spain, 1792-1906; the Papers of the Continental Congress : 1774-1789 and a microfiche on the US occupation of Japan. The Library also holds catalogues and bibliographic guides to temperance and prohibition papers, the National Archives and Records Administration Service and Library of Congress collections of early state records, German Foreign Ministry archives; Hungarian political and military microfilm collections and the O' Ryan economic trade mission to Japan and occupied China, 1940.
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Official publications

The Library holds some British official publications of interest in hard copy, for example The Journals of the House of Commons 1547-to date; The Journals of the House of Lords 1513-to date; House of Commons Sessional Papers of the 18th century; House of Lords Papers 1802-to date and House of Commons Papers 1790-to date. This primary source material covers navigation, trading companies, colonisation, trade, the slave trade, emigration etc. See also Microform & audiovisual collections above.

Maps and visual resources

The Library has a very extensive collection of folios of the Geologic Atlas of the United States covering the individual states at scales of 1:62500 and 1:125000 for the period circa 1880-1950, supplemented by several hundred map sheets. The Library also has a considerable coverage of the Geological Survey of Canada map sheets at varying scales, in addition to an almost complete national topographic map at 1:250,000. These map sheets are supported by a strong collection of national atlases.

The Napier Collection in the Archives and Business Records centre contains some photographic material, but the main visual resource related to North America is the Centre for Whistler Studies.

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