The UK Medical Heritage Library: uniting digitised collections



The Wellcome Library and Jisc are delighted to announce our nine UK research library partners for the UK Medical Heritage Library project. These libraries will be making their historic collections available for digitisation alongside the Wellcome Library’s own 19th century works. They make up the bulk of the 15 million page goal made possible by funding from the Higher Education and Funding Council for England and Jisc.

The nine partners include:

6 university libraries:

UCL (University College London)
University of Leeds
University of Glasgow
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
King’s College London
University of Bristol

3 Royal College libraries:

Royal College of Physicians of London
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
Royal College of Surgeons of England

Relevant works will be selected by the partner libraries from their historic book and pamphlet collections, representing a broad selection of works from across medicine, health, and related subjects. The Internet Archive will carry out all the digitisation work in a brand new scanning centre here at the Wellcome Library that will accommodate well over 2,000 items per month at peak times.

From October, these will start to become available online as part of the Medical Heritage Library  collection on the Internet Archive website and via the Wellcome Library catalogue.

More detail on the project and the library partners can be found here:

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need any further details.

Phoebe Harkins
Communications Co-ordinator
Wellcome Library
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE

T: +44 (0) 20 7611 8628
M: +44 (0) 7739 194907


Until September 2014  the Wellcome Library is undergoing major changes as part of the Wellcome Collection Development Project. We will be open for business, but there will be disruptions to services and some Library areas will be temporarily closed.

If you’re planning to visit the Library over the coming months, please check for updates on the Library blog where the most up-to-date information will be posted.

For full details of our opening hours please check our website

We are a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.

The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered in England and Wales, no. 210183. Its sole trustee is The Wellcome Trust Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, no. 2711000 (whose registered office is at 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK).

Follow us Twitter and Facebook