[2] The library holds more than 100,000 volumes of printed books, of which 60,000 were published before 1851 including a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle annotated by Thomas Gudlawe.

[3] Collections include 16th- and 17th-century printed works, periodicals and journals, local history sources, broadsides and ephemera.

[7] The collection includes An Allegory with Putti and Satyrs, oil on canvas, attributed to 16th-century artist and Netherlander Vincent Sellaer.

[7] One of the most substantial collections pertains to Belle Vue Zoo and Gardens, Manchester's most renowned entertainment attraction and zoological centre, in operation from the 1830s to the 1980s.

[9] A 2014 grant of £45,000 obtained by Chetham's Library allowed curators to make the collection available to online users, via digitization projects.

In 1653 the college buildings were bought with the bequest of Humphrey Chetham, for use as a free library and blue coat charity school.

[12] The 24 feoffees appointed by Humphrey Chetham set out to acquire a major collection of books and manuscripts that would cover the whole range of available knowledge and would rival the college libraries of Oxford and Cambridge.

[12] In 1718 the feoffees offered the Manchester poet and inventor of a system of shorthand, John Byrom, the post of Library Keeper.

[14] Additions were made to the buildings by J. E. Gregan (1850s), Alfred Waterhouse (1878) (grade II listed),[15] and J. Medland Taylor (1883–95).

[16] Manchester Grammar School moved to Fallowfield in the 1930s, and after standing empty for many years the original building was destroyed during the Second World War, leaving only its new block.