EPB Erotica [obsolete collection]

EPB Erotica contained 160 items, only 43 of which were on the catalogue. It is unclear when EPB Erotica was put together as a ‘collection’ at Wellcome. In a previous report it was described as ‘mostly post-1850’, ‘shelved in EPB by default’ and that ‘most of the material is relatively innocuous’. It also seems to have become a collection in the closed stores to put material that people did not feel comfortable putting on the open shelves. For example, there was a French book called Le haschisch contes in prose sonnets et poemes fantaisistes containing sonnets and poems around smoking cannabis.

In 2023, a wider section of work was being carried out around safeguarding and the presence of child sexual abuse material [CSAM] in the collections. EPB Erotica seemed an ideal case study to assess CSAM workflows and decision-making, providing examples that fully met the new guidelines and those that were on the borderline.

A full report on the case study, findings and actions can be found here. Please be aware that this report contains references to child sexual abuse material, sexual assault and abuse, racism, misogyny, bestiality, heterosexism and transphobia.

Post-inventory

As of 2025, 12 items from this collection had been assessed. Seven of the items were given safeguarded status, as were copies of the items found in other collections. More information on CSAM procedures can be found here.

All the items in the collection have now been subsumed into the main sequences, with the temporary numbers given during inventory and collection name added as former locations.

The next step is to use examples from this case study, and other parts of the collection, to support new guidance and procedures around obscene publications.