The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre, based in Manchester’s Central Library, received a collection of publications from the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) which, following a comprehensive digitisation project, are now available to everyone online via the Library’s digital image platform Luna.

This is a unique and significant collection of 541 pamphlets, reports and guidelines published by the CRE across its lifespan, from 1976 to 2007. They comprehensively chart the changing debates, policy and practice of race relations in the UK during this time. These publications don’t exist as a collection anywhere else, in either digital or physical format, and many of the individual titles are unique.

The publications were originally acquired by the Resource Centre as part of a very large donation from the CRE library, following the organisation’s dissolution (into the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission) in 2007. They are part of the physical library collection and have proved extremely valuable to researchers, both from the University and communities across Greater Manchester.

The Resource Centre are delighted the materials are now also available digitally as this means they are accessible to everyone locally, nationally and beyond.

You can take a look at the Resource Centre’s digital collections and read a blog post about digitisation at the Resource Centre.