Collections

The University’s collections are internationally renowned and have been Recognised as being of national significance by the Scottish Government. Originating in the 18^th century museums of King’s College and Marischal College, they now have over 300,000 items across a wide range of Human Culture, Medicine and Health, and Natural History. As the product of centuries of collecting, driven by the research and teaching activities of staff and the exploits and generosity of graduates and friends, there is also a deep cohesion between the collections and with rich links with the University’s Archives and Special Collections.

The University has a wide variety of museum collections, as well as its collections of archives and rare books. Items that might be linked together, perhaps from a particular person or a place, have often become scattered among these collections. Until recently it has been difficult to locate information to reunite materials that might once have been together, but the online catlaogues now enable searches acros all the collections.

The 'Connecting Collections' project has also highlighted some of the collectors and themes that link the collections. These pages include only a few examples of relevant items from our collections. The online catalogue holds records of about 185,000 of them. To make further enquiries please contact the Curator (Documentation and Fine Art) at s.elliott@abdn.ac.uk.