Our Role and Support in Teaching

We can support a wide range of teaching, including history, ancient world, archaeology, anthropology, English literature, history of architecture, medieval studies, history of art, book illustration, heritage, and religion.  

We stock an enormous range of primary source material, which helps students to develop an understanding of the use of original material in research. It can bring teaching to life for lecturers as well as students. We can also support teaching and learning activities and contribute content aimed at staff and students across the University including events, exhibitions, InfoSkills content and social media.   

Our reading room provides a good environment for research and seminars. Material from the collections can be displayed and, depending on their fragility, often handled by the students. Our staff are happy to give general introductions to the use of the collections and can spend time working with individuals. 

We can help to develop student assignments and can facilitate a wide range of types of work (for instance, good quality physical or online exhibitions, posters, and presentations, as well as essays). Our collections provide a wealth of material suitable as subjects for students’ independent research projects and postgraduate research. 

 We also offer students the opportunity to work with us as volunteers, helping with research for exhibitions and archiving projects.