The Haddon Library is primarily a working library with materials for taught courses and research at Cambridge. However, we have some interesting special collections:
Teaching Collection
The teaching collection has 40+ books on topics of interest to library professionals who teach or who would like to learn more about teaching. These books are borrowable by any university member, however. You'll find the collection behind the copy machine in the main reading room of the Haddon Library.
Gender Studies Collection
The Gender Studies Collection is a collection of 242 publications, mostly pamphlets, dating from the late 1960s to the 1980s. The material originated from various donations to the Cambridge SPS Library when the faculty was first established. Please see this PDF for a complete list of the collection.
The collection includes keystone publications on LGBT issues, the liberation of men and women, advice on motherhood, abortion, childcare, race and employment. The late 20th century was an influential period in the movement of rights, making this archive an important resource through a range of disciplines.
Most of the archive is unique to Cambridge, if not the UK. As most of the items in the collection are fragile, copying or scanning is not permitted. All the items are catalogued and are available for users to browse in the library.
To browse this collection, please make an appointment by emailing the Haddon Library. The library staff will be happy to show you some of the interesting works in the archive, suggest ways you can further your reading within gender studies and, hopefully, help to incorporate parts of this collection into your research.
Image collection
We also have over 500 images from older books at the Haddon Library hosted by the Cambridge University Repository (Apollo). You can find background information about many of the images in the following posts:
If you would like access to high-resolution copies of these images, please place your request via the repository pages for the images.
Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash