How to use the Image Library

We now have nearly ten thousand slides and digital images in the Society's collection. The catalogue is necessarily very large but is divided into colour-coded categories:

Blue: Local and national government
Green: Ecclesiastical, educational, legal, arts
Red: Royal, national, heralds
Violet: Military, orders of knighthood, rolls of arms, teaching, miscellaneous
Orange and White: Personal arms
Yellow: Commercial, professional & learned bodies, livery companies, medical
Sable: Slide sets
Turquoise: Digital images, all categories

The categories are somewhat arbitrary; some images contain more than one kind of heraldry, and it is always worth looking in the Sable section. The catalogue pages include a more detailed classification, including the format and medium of the heraldry.

Any of the slides can be borrowed by members of the Society, and by other Societies which contain Heraldry Society members. Simply send an email listing the numbers and titles of the slides you want, to the Image Librarian, Andrew Gray (andrew.gray4@virgin.net), who will send the slides by Special Delivery. You will be expected to return them by the same service.

No slide leaves our library without being scanned; thus an increasing number of images are available for electronic presentation. If you need digital images, any of the slides can be scanned to order. Also, there is a growing list of digital images with no corresponding slides. At a future date, it may be possible to present "thumbnail" images of all these on this site, so that you can make a better informed choice.

We are always glad to acquire members' slide collections, and we are particularly keen to receive your digital collections. However, good documentation is vital. Please make sure that location and subject information are written on the slide frame (lists get lost!). For digital collections, please include a detailed list on the disk.

To search the catalogue, click here

(Be patient - they are large files!)