Blog

1. Laureate’s Choice

   The best Christmas present we received this year – sadly it was the only present we got, apart from Ian Beesley’s Spanish sausage (don’t ask) – was an empty bottle...

   9th January 2015 • Read more

2. At the sign of the spectacles

   One of the most striking shop signs in Victorian Manchester was that of the optician T. M. Bowen, whose premises at 27 Market Place were dominated by an enormous pair...

   8th January 2015 • Read more

3. Deck the Halls

   The torrential rain this past couple of days on top of last week’s ‘weather-bomb’ sent us to volume viii of The Boys Own Bookshelf, Indoor Games and Recreations: A Popular...

   18th December 2014 • Read more

4. A fresh look at the Belle Vue project

     Today we are delighted to introduce another of our work placement students, Courtney Stickland of the University of Manchester, who is working alongside Kathy on the Belle Vue Project...

   12th December 2014 • Read more

5. The Ariel Poems

     In 1927, long before the Christmas shopping frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a young director from the publishing company Faber and Gwynne came up with an innovative...

   11th December 2014 • Read more

6. Manchester: Alchemical City

   Don’t miss Jeanette Winterson’s new documentary ‘Manchester: Alchemical City’, which airs on Radio 4 next week. Jeanette, who is one of our Honorary Patrons, takes a personal look at the...

   3rd December 2014 • Read more

7. An early work of botany, and a political cow

      A reader recently requested this splendid folio work by the seventeenth-century French physician and botanist Dionys Dodart in collaboration with the engraver Nicolas Robert. Dodart (1634-1707) was elected to...

   27th November 2014 • Read more

8. Lunchtime closure

   Some of you may know that we have been trialling lunchtime openings since the beginning of the academic year. Regrettably we have now made the decision to revert to closing...

   19th November 2014 • Read more

9. From Flanders Fields to Worsley Hall

   One hundred years ago many of the great houses of Great Britain were converted into temporary hospitals to treat wounded servicemen home from the fighting on the Western Front. Worsley...

   13th November 2014 • Read more

10. On the radio

    Catch us on BBC Radio 6 Music on Sunday afternoon between 2-4pm, when Guy Garvey looks at Manchester’s rich library heritage as part of 6 Radio’s week of special library-themed...

    12th November 2014 • Read more