The subjects we cover

Today, St Bride Library’s collections cover all aspects of printing—paper and binding; graphic design, typography, typefaces and calligraphy; illustration and printmaking; publishing and bookselling; and the social and economic side of printing and its allied trades. We continue to develop our position as the definitive source for typographic information and the world’s foremost printing, technical and graphic arts library.

With printing technology changing at an unprecedented pace, our collections provide an increasingly important focal point both for the modern industry, and for the study of the traditional means by which words and images have been reproduced and distributed.

Below is a list of the top 100 main subject headings in the Library. Each heading is categorised according to the classification shown.

Collecting intensity

Click on a level to highlight matching collections.

1 Minimal Level a subject area in which few selections are made beyond very basic works

2 Basic Information Level a collection of up-to-date general materials that serves to introduce and define a subject and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere

3 Instructional Support Level a collection that is adequate to support undergraduate instruction, or sustained independent study; that is, adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalised purposes, of less than research intensity.

4 Research Level a collection that includes the major published source materials required for dissertations and independent research.

5 Comprehension Level a collection in which the Library endeavours to include all significant works of recorded knowledge.

E Principally English-language material

F Principally a mixture of English and or other European languages

W Material in European and non-European languages

Subject Headings

• Advertising 3E
• Alphabet [history] 4F
• Art history [general] 1E
• Art of the book 4F
• Author/reader relations 2E
• Book collecting 3F
• Book design 4F
• Book illustration 2F
• Book trades bibliography 4F
• Bookbinding 4F
• Bookselling technique 4E
• Book trade history [GB] 4E
• Book trade history [USA] 3E
• Book trade history [rest of the world] 2F
• Calligraphy 3F
• Children’s books in general 2F
• Colour science 2E
• Conservation 3E
• Copying and duplicating 4F
• Copyright, industrial property law 3E
• Dictionaries of printmakers 3F
• Early colour printing 4F
• Editors and journalists [England] 3E
• Electrotyping 5F
• Enumerative bibliography 1E
• Ephemera 3F
• Flexography 5F
• Eric Gill 4E
• Graphic design 3E
• Graphic design [handbooks] 4F
• Graphic designers 3E
• Graphic reproduction 4F
• Gravure 5F
• Historical bibliography 4F
• Illustration 2F
• Ink and rollers 4F
• Journalism 3E
• Law of the press 3F
• Legibility and physiology of reading 3E
• Letterforms 4F
• Letterpress 5F
• Libraries 1E
• Literacy [history] 3E
• Lithography [history] 4F
• Lithography [industrial] 5F
• Management [in subject] 4E
• Manuscript illumination 2E
• Mensuration and calculation [in subject] 5F
• Minor printing processes 5F
• Miscellaneous biography [in subject] 3E
• William Morris 4E

• Music printing 4F
• News agency history 4F
• Newspaper history [general] 3F
• Newspaper history [England] 4E
• Newspaper history [not England] 2F
• Newspaper technique 4F
• Non-Latin Scripts 4F
• Numerals 3F
• Office copying 3E
• Ornament 2E
• Packaging design 3F
• Packaging technique 3E
• Paper [as product] 4F
• Papermaking 4F
• Papermaking by hand [modern] 3E
• Papermaking materials 3F
• Patent abridgements [in subject] 4E
• Pattern paper 3F
• Photoengraving 4F
• Photography 1E
• Posters 3F
• Printers’ manuals 5W
• Printers’ manuals for amateurs 5F
• Printing history [general] 5F
• Printing history [Britain] 5F
• Printing history [other countries] 4W
• Printing machinery [historical] 4F
• Printing science 3E
• Printmaking 3F
• Private presses 5F
• Publishing technique 4E
• Screen process 5F
• Shorthand 4F
• Signs and symbols 3F
• Social question [in subject] 4F
• Stationers’ Company history 4E
• Stereotyping 5F
• Textile printing 3F
• Trade literature 4F
• Trade union history [in subject] 4F
• Type and composition 5F
• Type specimens 5W
• Typefaces 5F
• Typefounding 5F
• Typographic style manuals 4F
• Vocabulary [in subject] 5F
• Wood engraving [history] 3F
• Works for children [in subject] 3E