It consists of: It is the only library in the United Kingdom to receive the Charter Mark award for excellence five times in a row.

[4] A substantial extension to this building in 1960 was quickly outgrown by the library, which from 1963 served the new University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

In 1982 a new library building opened on Jesmond Road West, occupying ground cleared during the construction of the Newcastle Central Motorway in the early 1970s.

The subsequent £8 million bequest in the will of his widow Marjorie remains the largest sum donated to a UK university library.

[8] The Walton Library, located in the Medical School on Framlington Place, specialises in texts and resources relating to biomedical sciences,[9] although students of any discipline are allowed to use it for study.

Specialised student text collections exist for books that are heavily in demand, and a computer cluster is also available.