Discover, Explore, Learn is a new initiative funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to support the digitisation of key pamphlets in our library collection making them accessible to the general public for the first time in the history of the library.  Anyone with an interest in history, the arts and politics will be able to … Read more

Since we got the good news at the end of September that our bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund had been successful a great deal has been happening. There are two main planks to our proposal, both with the same aim of opening the wealth of our Library collections to the public. First, we are … Read more

Before the ‘Windrush’: Race Relations in 20th-Century Liverpool has been written by John Belchem, Athenaeum proprietor and Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Liverpool. The volume was published by Liverpool University Press in 2014. Liverpool’s cosmopolitan society of transients and settlers from various locations date back several centuries. This book concentrates on the … Read more

The Athenaeum Library is grateful to Her Honour Judge Elizabeth Steel (Christie) for donating to the institution quite a number of her late husband’s books. They range over a number of topics and include several with a musical flavour. One of these is the autobiography: Sir Geraint Evans: A Knight at the Opera – published … Read more

If you thought that you knew the port, Adrian Jarvis’s book Liverpool: A History of ‘The Great Port’ (Liverpool History Press, 2014) is bound to have something new to say. The volume is full of detail with many illustrations, some in colour. Jarvis concentrates on the period after 1672 when the land that became the … Read more

One of the important treasurers of the Library is the William Roscoe collection of books and manuscripts. They were purchased by his friends at a book sale in 1815 and presented to the Athenaeum. This important collection is often the subject of enquiries and recently we have welcomed several overseas visitors who are interested in … Read more

On the days from 4th June until midday on June 6th Proprietors and visiting academics heard interesting accounts of the use tea, coffee chocolate in the 18th century. From Charleston to China, Uppsala near Stockholm to the highlands of Ethiopia, discussion and talk in the library has, for three days, been concerned with the epochal … Read more

Many Proprietors may well be familiar with the books, and the films based on them, written by Nevil Shute. Parallel Motion: A Biography of Nevil Shute Norway by John Anderson is a new book into the Athenaeum library. The volume was published by The Paper Tiger Inc. in 2011. It covers Shute’s remarkable career as … Read more

On Lightnight at the Athenaeum visitors were welcomed in to view the Newsroom and the Library and see some of the many treasures from the book collection that span the centuries. Amongst the books on display a volume of the Atlantic Neptune attracted a great deal of interest. The two volume work contains maps and … Read more

On the night of Friday 15th May the Athenaeum Library once more took part in the annual Lightnight Festival when libraries, galleries and museums, not usually open at night, welcome visitors.  Our library offered a series of guided tours; visitors saw the Library reading room, the stacks and the Committee Room where a large number … Read more