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There are approximately 500,000 items held at Birmingham City University Arts, Design & Media Cultural Collection’s archive, spanning 40 collections covering art and design, photography, education, music, media, jewellery, architecture and fashion. They range in size from less than fifty items to over 40,000 and contain paper documents and books as well as artworks, designs, posters, photographs and slides. Thirteen collections have been catalogued to date.

Amongst the paper-base collections are:

Bournville School of Art Collection The collection includes documentary material including prospectuses dating from 1919-20 to 1982-83, course brochures, exhibition catalogues and student artwork.

Craftsman’s Club Collection The Craftsman’s Club was a group founded in 1902 by Robert Catterson-Smith, Headmaster of the School of Art from 1903 to 1920.

Larry Cartoon Collection Larry Parkes was a cartoonist and illustrator, the collection contains cartoons on the subject of art and art galleries.

Leonard Jay Collection Leonard Jay was the first Head of the Birmingham School of Printing and the archive contains an almost complete collection of the work that he produced at the School.

Ron Davis Collection Ronald Davis (1920-1996) was a typographer and labour councillor. The collection contains material relating to Ron Davis’ political and professional careers. 

School of Art Archive This collection includes books, student records, programmes and photographs that document the history of the School.