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What's available
We hold key photographic collections:
- The Local Image Collection provides a unique photographic record of the city, its people, streets and buildings from a period stretching well over 100 years. Our full collection of over 80,000 images is also available in our archives catalogue (check 'only items with images' in the search). You can also buy high quality prints.
- The Documentary Photography Archive (DPA) is a special archive which documents life in the Greater Manchester region. The vast majority of the images have been catalogued and are searchable using our archives catalogue. Enter DPA in the 'reference no.' field and your search term (e.g. John Smith or Bengal Street) in the 'any text' field. A selection of images from the collection can now be viewed on our Flickr photostream.
- We also have gifts including t-shirts, bags, cards, postcards and calendars based on our collections at the Central Library shop
- Timepix features a fascinating series of photographs of Greater Manchester taken by Ordnance Survey in the 1950s. Copies of images may be purchased direct through their site.
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Related information
We don't offer advice on dating old photographs but you may find Gillian Jones's book 'Lancashire Photographers 1840 to 1940' useful for checking dates and addresses of particular local photographic studios.