Annual Report 2024–25

We enrich representation through acquisitions, internships and cataloguing projects, providing new ways for communities and scholars to connect. 

Let’s rock! 

A recently purchased Victorian photograph album of the Leeds and Hull Geological Society shows rare images of what might be called “geologists at play”. Importantly, the album is a record of how women engaged with fieldwork in late 19th century Britain. 

The album will be showcased in the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, as part of the British Society for the History of Science Postgraduate Conference. 

LGBTQ+ internship shines a diverse lens on our collections 

Our third LGBTQ+ internship explored ways for researchers to engage with collections, reviewing archives, artworks, books and coins to develop practical approaches for integrating LGBTQ+ perspectives into our cultural collections. 

Highlighting Jewish archival material with the Yerusha Project 

Our Jewish history archives are being enhanced with updated catalogue descriptions before we share them with the online portal Yerusha. 

Yerusha collates Jewish archival material from hundreds of repositories across Europe. Sharing our descriptions expands the reach of our collections and enables researchers to make connections from our holdings to collections elsewhere. 

Iron Age coin challenge 

Iron Age coins are notoriously challenging to identify and study, but a team of four volunteers, including students, took up the challenge to catalogue the 97 Iron Age coins in our collection. Our catalogue data will appear in national and international databases, such as the Iron Age Coins of Britain database. 

Performance, creativity and Roman coins 

Students in the Classics department created visual poems based on Roman coins from our Cultural Collections. 

Exploring women’s voices in art history 

Dr Kerry Harker, Bridget Riley Art Foundation Fellow, is working with our archive of artist and Leeds educator Maurice de Sausmarez (1915–1969). 

Kerry is looking at how the voices of women emerge from the archive – as artists, educators, publishers, curators, gallery directors and other roles in post-war British Art. She will curate an exhibition and public programme from her research. 

Access to non-western language collections improved 

Almost 7,000 catalogue records now include original language scripts, increasing discoverability through cross-language searching. 

• 3,449 Chinese 
• 1,288 Arabic 
• 903 Japanese 
• 840 Thai 
• 235 Ukrainian 
• 155 Korean 

50 new ‘forever’ resources 

Investment in perpetual access to digital resources diversifies and decolonises our collections, and saves researchers travel time. Highlights include: 

• USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA) – supports teaching and research across disciplines. Researchers previously had to travel to London or Manchester to access the VHA 
• African Book Collective – new titles in social science, African studies, politics and international affairs, language and linguistics 
• political radicalism and extremism archives from Gale, AM Digital, and British Online Archives 
• archive and historical news resources on East and Southeast Asia. 

Belonging in featured collections 

Nine new featured collections celebrate the diversity of our campus community and create a sense of belonging. 

• 5,853 print and online interactions