When the Mitchell Library opened in 1877, one of the earliest decisions of the Committee was to form a collection of all material relating to Robert Burns and by purchase and donation the collection has grown to over 4,000 items (not bad for a man, who in his lifetime only published a single, rather slim volume of poetry) and is the world’s largest.
The Collection holds more than 900 editions of Burns' work, 15 original manuscripts of letters and poems, and translations of the work of Burns into over 30 languages. There is an extensive collection of ephemera from Glasgow Burns Clubs, several series of scrapbooks of Burnsiana, audio and audio-visual material, and a complete set of the Robert Burns World Federation's annual publication, the Burns Chronicle.
Indexes are available for the scrapbooks, Burns Chronicle (to 1975) and to illustrations in the collection.