University of Manchester Library years. University of Manchester Library The University of Manchester Library is The University of Manchester's library and information service. The main library is on the Oxford Road campus of the University with its entrance on Burlington Street. There are also twelve other library sites, ten spread out across the University's campus, plus The John Rylands Library on Deansgate and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre situated inside Manchester Central Library. In 1851 the library of Owens College was established at Cobden House on Quay Street, Manchester. This later became the Manchester University Library (of the Victoria University of
John Rylands Library prevent the air being 'fouled by the opening of the outer doors' with internal swing doors between the circulation areas and the main library to 'preserve the valuable books from injury'. By 1900 the ventilation system had evolved to include electric fans to draw in air at pavement level through coke screens sprayed with water. On opening in 1900, the library had 70,000 books and fewer than 100 manuscripts and by 2012, more than 250,000 printed volumes and over one million manuscripts and archival items. The main foundation of the library's collections acquired in 1892 was the "Althorp Library" of