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The museum, IMAX and Pictureville are temporarily closed. Find out about our major transformation.

The Royal Photographic Society collection

The Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection was in our care between 2002 and 2016. In 2016 we announced that it would transfer to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).

At the V&A, the RPS collection will be stored, digitised and made available for study; the permanent gallery space dedicated to photography at the V&A will expand significantly, and there are plans for an International Photography Resource Centre as part of a longer-term and wide-ranging project to improve access to the collection.

For more information, read our press statement.

Loan and research requests for RPS material

All requests to access or borrow RPS material for short- or long-term loan should now to be directed to the V&A.

For study or research requests, more information can be found on the V&A’s Study Rooms page, under the heading Prints & Drawings Study Room.

Information relating to the V&A Loans Out process can be found on the V&A’s Loans page.

If you have a loan request containing material both in the RPS collection and the National Science and Media Museum collection, please direct the relevant parts of the request to the V&A and the National Science and Media Museum respectively.

Requests to borrow material from the National Science and Media Museum collection should be sent to group.registration@sciencemuseum.ac.uk.

Borrowers who have already made requests have been contacted individually and agreed loans will be honoured.