The Great North Museum is also home to the Society's library, holding over 30,000 books, with a particular focus on local history and Roman Britain.

[8][9] Since 1822 the society has produced a journal which acts as a forum for the publication of research on the history, archaeology, and culture of the North East of England.

[11] In 1855, the Society set up an Ancient Melodies Committee, with the object of collecting and preserving the characteristic songs and pipe music of the county.

In 1857, the Committee delivered a preliminary report to the Duke of Northumberland, with the pipers William Green and James Reid both providing musical illustrations.

However, they were reluctant to publish at this stage, considering that the question of distinguishing Northumbrian tunes from Scottish or southern English ones deserved more work.

The Committee's work seems to have stalled after the deaths of White and Kell, and Fenwick's move to London, but the Society published the Northumbrian Minstrelsy in 1882, edited by Rev.

[13] However, many of the smallpipe tunes they published were drastically simplified, in particular dropping the variations found in the collection of John Peacock, which they had used as a source.