to lack of funds to construct a purpose-built library. William Edgar Allen, a member of the University Council, provided £10,000 to build a proper library named Edgar Allen Library, locating beside the main university building (Firth Court). Edgar Allen Library had 100 seats in its reading room, shelves for 20,000 books, and a stack space for 60,000 more books. Sir Charles Harding Firth, the first lecturer in Modern History in Firth College, donated part of his personal collection to the library. Sheffield Town Trustee also helped the university to transform the General Lecture Theatre into a reading room housing the Firth Collection (rare book collection of approximately 20,000 volumes) in 1931. As the university rapidly expanded in the 1950s, it became necessary to replace Edgar Allen Library with a modern post-war era library. The library, later known as the Western Bank Library, was opened on 12 May 1959. Edgar Allen Library (now the Rotunda in Firth Court) became the Registrar and Secretary's Office. St George's Library (now 38 Mappin Street) was refurbished as an exam venue.
=== Museums and collections ===
The Alfred Denny Museum is a zoology museum operated by the university. Established in 1905, the museum was located in Firth Court, spanning three floors, and was named after the first professor of biology at Sheffield in 1950. It has specimens from all major phyla, and two letters written from Charles Darwin to Henry Denny, father of Alfred Denny. Many of the specimens have been collected since the 1900s, but much of the information about the collection was lost during the Second World War. The museum, now reduced in size, has been moved to Alfred Denny Building after the war. The museum is not open to the public at all time but usually on the first Saturday of each month.
The Turner Museum of Glass houses the university's collections of 19th and 20th century glass. It contains items mainly from major European and American glassworkers and examples from ancient Egypt and Rome. It is in the Hadfield Building. …
