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Palace Green Library
Palace Green
DURHAM
DH1 3RN
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 2972
Email: pg.library@durham.ac.uk
Psychology
The development of Psychology as an academic subject, and its growth before it became an academic discipline in its own right, can be researched in the extensive resources of Archives and Special Collections.
General
Resources for some specific areas are highlighted below, but resources for many more specific topics can be discovered by searching for the appropriate topic (such as Psychology or Freud) in Discover and by restricting the search to ‘Durham Archives’ or by searching the printed catalogue by selecting the topic as a subject or keyword and restricting the search to ‘Special Collections’ or ‘Ushaw College’.
Psychology as an Academic Discipline
Arthur Robinson was appointed as Professor of Logic and Psychology in 1910 but it was not until 1952/3 that a separate department of Educational Psychology was established in Durham, which became titled just Psychology in 1957. The development of the subject and department is reflected in the university’s own archive, in central, faculty and departmental files, in the records of the meetings of its various committees from Senate and Council down, in the exam papers, pass lists and mark sheets for the subject, the development of library collections relating to it, and the university’s publications of such as the Gazette, Calendar, Journal, and Vice-Chancellor’s Reports, and newsletters and the like.
Scholars in the Field
The collections include the papers of Sir Laurens van der Post (1906-1996), including much on his interest in Jung and analytical psychology. There are also the papers of the Newcastle philosophers Mary Midgley, (1919-2018), who also had interests in psychology and worked on Freud, and Karl Britton (1909-1983), who was quite a contributor to Mind. The papers of the university vice-chancellor Sir James Duff (1898-1970) reflect something of his academic background and interests in educational psychology.
Printed Books
Some 20th century texts on Psychology are amongst the collections at Palace Green Library, but it is Ushaw College that is particularly rich on the subject in the Big Library with volumes dating back to the works of such as Goclenius/Göckel of the early 17th century, Descartes and then Christian Wolff’s seminal works Psychologia empirica (1732) and Psychologia rationalis (1734) and on to Wilhelm Wundt, with other works also in the library of Lisbon College there.
