Special Collections

A wonderful resource of images, stories and ideas for students, staff and members of the public.

Discover over 150 collections of rare books and archives: manuscripts, letters, photographs, artworks, newspapers, maps, pamphlets, objects, digital files, and even J.B. Priestley's pipes.

Our Mission:

Special Collections at the University of Bradford collects, organises, preserves and makes accessible, unique and distinctive collections to support learning, teaching and research for all.

Covid-19 - updated access to Special Collections

Special Collections has re-opened to researchers. Appointments are available but must be pre-booked. We have a limited scan and send service to enable digital access to our collections. Please contact special-collections@bradford.ac.uk with any enquiries about the collections and to book an appointmnet.

Covid-19: University of Bradford's Visual Archive

Special Collections, at the University of Bradford, is collecting images of staff and students taken during the Covid-19 pandemic to create a photographic archive of experiences. The images will be added to the University’s archive collection and will be available to researchers in the future. We would love to receive your contributions.

Images taken from the start of lockdown in March 2020 and throughout the 2020-21 academic year will be included in the archive, to show how our staff and students have coped and adapted to home working, studying at home and the return to campus with social distancing measures in place.

Use our web form to submit images for the archive. For further guidance, please see our information sheet below or contact Special Collections.