Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre, Lower Ground Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peter’s Square, Manchester, M2 5PD
Opening Hours:
Our staff can be found at our enquiry desk at the following times:
Monday: 9:30am-12:30pm, 1:30-4:30pm.
Tuesday: 9:30am-12:30pm, 1:30-4:30pm.
Wednesday: 9:30am-12:30pm, 1:30-4:30pm.
Thursday: 1:30pm-4:30pm.
Friday: Closed for the foreseeable future.
Our desk is also closed on the third Thursday of every month for staff training.
You can visit the library, use our study spaces and borrow books whenever Manchester Central Library is open:
Monday to Thursday 9am to 8pm
Friday and Saturday 9am to 5pm
Closed Sunday and Bank Holidays
Manchester Central Library has level and ramped access with automatic doors at ground level and lifts which provides access to each floor. All exhibition areas, meeting rooms and public spaces are fully wheelchair accessible, and we have accessible toilets on every floor with a changing place on the lower ground floor.
Other accessibility facilities are induction loop, large print, disabled parking and online booking.
Staff
The Trust and Centre have a small but dedicated staff that work closely together on many projects with global majority community groups at the helm to collect life histories, photographs and documents so their histories are preserved and shared. We also support schools and teachers to develop an anti-racist curriculum, including creating educational resources for use in schools and community settings as well as organising regular events, exhibitions and activities throughout the year to share knowledge of the contributions of global majority communities to British history.
Our building
Image of the outside of Manchester Central Library 
Image of the Archives+ Digital Exhibition Space, a partnership of archive and local history organisations at Manchester Central Library. 
Exhibition of the life and legacies of Ahmed Iqbal Ullah, who was murdered by a fellow pupil in the grounds of a Manchester High School in 1986 located in the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Relations Resource Centre. 
Image of the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Relations Resource Centre, a dedicated library section within Manchester Central Library on the Lower Ground Floor. 
Image of the Search Room located on the Manchester Central Library Ground Floor.
Images of Strong Room where collections and items are stored to preserve histories in optimal conditions. 
Images of Strong Room where collections and items are stored to preserve histories in optimal conditions. 
Images of Strong Room where collections and items are stored to preserve histories in optimal conditions.
What you’ll find
What we collect
We collect and hold unique library and archive collections that tell the story of race, ethnicity and migration in Manchester, the UK and America. Our historical archive collections are rooted in local Global Majority community history, which include life stories, paper documents and photographs. We also hold significant national collections related to race relations in the UK.
We hold life stories, the voices of real people which are a significant and extremely rich part of our collection. We hold more than 300 individual recordings, mostly with members of the local Global Majority community talking about life in Manchester.
We also have a library collection that has over 15,000 titles, covering topics including culture and identity, history, politics, and local studies. We also publish a range of books and resources for schools and young readers, created in partnership with Manchester schools and community groups. They include folk tales written and illustrated by local children, biographies, personal stories, local histories and teaching resources to support multicultural education.
Approximately two-thirds of the library collection is loanable to anyone with a Manchester Libraries card. Reference only material is clearly labelled and can be studied anywhere within our library.
To explore our unique library and archive collections, all our resources can be found through the Manchester Libraries catalogue Advanced Search: https://manchester.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRNGEN/WPAC/AIU?HOMEPRMS=UD_AIUPARAMS.
Most Unusual Item
One of the most unusual items we hold in our collections is finding a handwritten recipe on the back of a committee leaflet.
