Specific exclusions are literary and scientific manuscripts and military and local history.
The material dates mainly from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the present day. The archives does not normally expect to acquire documents of foreign provenance unless they are already held in the UK, or are associated with the School or there are compelling reasons against placing them in an archive in their place of origin. A collection will be accepted in entirety if only a part falls within the parameters of the collecting policy. The British Library of Political and Economic Science has several important collections of rare books on economics, politics and history. There is no separate rare books catalogue, most rare books are included in the card catalogue and in A London Bibliography of the Social Sciences, but not yet in the on-line catalogue.