Prospectuses issued by the former Manchester Mechanics' Institution [and Technical School], Manchester Municipal College [School] of Technology, Manchester College of Science and Technology and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
It is not known when the institution first issued a prospectus of courses. By the late 1870s, it published a reasonably detailed syllabi of courses every year. The Syllabus, as it was originally known, combined elements of a prospectus with the more general information of an annual calendar. This continued until the Edwardian period when the publication was renamed a "Calendar", although the information it contained remained broadly similar. Typically a single volume was issued, which contained information on courses, regulations, fees etc, as well as more general information on College facilities, examination results etc. ( and from the 1890s, prospectuses included photographs).
Until the outbreak of the Second World War, the institution issued a detailed general calendar or prospectus, covering both university and non-university courses, and from around 1919 individual departmental prospectuses were also issued for particular courses. In the post-1945 period, the usual format was for a brief general prospectus, accompanied by detailed departmental prospectuses, which were then bound into a single volume. Although the MCST and later UMIST continued to form the Faculty of Technology of the University of Manchester until the 1990s, there do not appear to be the standard faculty handbooks for Technology, as existed for the other University faculties (although information about the Faculty of Technology continued to appear in the University of Manchester calendar until 1994).
From 1976, UMIST appears to have stopped binding the prospectuses into a single volume, and after that date, departmental prospectuses disappear from the collection (although they probably continued to be issued). General undergraduate and postgraduate prospectuses were published annually or biennially from the 1970s until the early 2000s.
The collection currently comprises the following prospectuses: 1878/9-1886/7 (1 volume); 1887/8-1890/1 (1 volume); 1891/2-1894/5 (1 volume), 1895/6-1897/8 (1 volume); 1898/9-1899/1900 (1 volume), 1900/1-1901/2 (1 volume), annual volumes from 1902/3 to 1975/6 - although the volume for 1906/7 is missing, and no prospectuses were issued between 1940/1 and 1944/5. There is a general guide for 1976/7, undergraduate prospectuses for 1978-1986, 1989, 1991-1995, 1997, 1998, 2001-2003, and postgraduate prospectuses for 1976, 1978, 1980-1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1996, and 1997. In addition, there is "A guide to research at UMIST" (1999) and "Graduate Opportunites" (1999/2000).