Coleção BPL - Beckett Park Library Collection

This artificial collection is based around material of historical interest housed by the Library at Beckett Park Campus later renamed Headingley Campus. The core items were entrusted to Joan Newiss, (Librarian) by Dr L. Connell (Principal), E. Exwood and P. Hamilton (senior members of staff) and by students of the college. Newiss records that the material was never part of the Library collection but was simply stored there for convenience. At some point possibly during the 1960s an attempt was made to formalise the material as an Archive Collection and some items bear markings and reference numbers from this period. Newiss also complied a detailed Calander of the material ca. mid 1980s. Robin Bateman (Librarian) and Newiss were the senior staff at the Library during this period. During the late 1970s and early 1980s a great deal of archival material was passed on to the Leeds District Archive at Sheepscar, the rationale being that the material made up part of the Local Education Authority records. The core material that makes up this collection was never passed on to Sheepscar and in 1994 Library managers decided that this should remain with the University as part of its heritage. Generally, substantial amount of heritage material was scattered throughout the Beckett Park site and an informal archive was developed in 1997 around the Newiss core holding by Keith Rowntree in an attempt to collect and preserve this historical material spread around the Campus. This archive in 2008 was formalised as the Archive and Special Collections with a University wide remit to collect and preserve the University's heritage.

Collection mainly focuses on material generated by the City of Leeds Training College and Carnegie Physical Training College. These include handbooks and prospectuses of the colleges dating from 1913 to 1970s, documents relating to the early years of Carnegie College, Carnegie College trip to Berlin Olympics in 1936. training college magazine ‘The Owl’ from 1930s, donations from alumni from various period, military items from 1940s when college was an Army Training Centre.