Insight is the Museum's Collections & Research Centre. It is where our Collections can be used, explored and enjoyed by anybody and everyone. We offer all of our visitors the chance to go behind the scenes of our archive and see our wonderful holdings for themselves.
Insight provides outstanding facilities in a research environment for the care and management of all of the Museum's Collections. Insight is the main focal point for research on our visual media and offers navigational tools and access to a range of paper and computer-based reference sources. Insight consists of a suite of rooms, each having its own environmental microclimates specifically tailored for the range of material held therein.
Insight - How can I get access?
There are guided tours of Insight every day. Tuesday-Friday at 1.00pm. Weekends, Bank Holidays and School Holiday Mondays at 2.00pm. These tours are free, so come and explore the National Collection through a guided tour. You can arrange to see the Collections personally. Just contact us on 0870 7010 200 and you can make an appointment to visit any time between 10.00 and 12.30pm or 2.00 - 4.00pm (Tuesday to Friday).
Contact Us
If you are interested in arranging a visit to Insight: our Collections and Research Centre, or just have an enquiry about our collections, please contact us
Insight Facilities
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The Gandolfi Room is a suite of research rooms to accommodate visitors studying and enjoying prints, cameras and other technology alongside, printed materials and ephemera, and archive moving footage.
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Three print archives housing over 3.2 million photographs in high quality surroundings.
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The Kraszna-Krausz Room, a custom-built viewing area, the only one of its kind in the United Kingdom, offers groups and individuals the opportunity to view at close quarters material which they have personally selected the from the Collections.
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Three archives containing artifacts spanning the range of cinema, photographic and television technologies, which are arranged using modern visible storage techniques.
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Two printed materials archives housing an extensive collection of books, periodicals, trade literature, posters and ephemera, including The Royal Photographic Society Library.
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Additional room facilities are provided for specialist research and collections management activities.
Andor Kraszna-Krausz
Andor Kraszna-Krausz 1904-1989
Andor Kraszna-Krausz (KK to his friends) was born in Hungary in 1904. After studying photography and cinematography at Munich University he began his publishing career in Germany in 1925 as the editor of Filmtechnik magazine. In 1937 he came to Britain as a refugee and a year later founded Focal Press, a specialist publishing house for books on photography. Focal Press publications were an immediate success, gaining a reputation for clear yet authoritative text and illustrations. During KK's lifetime Focal Press published 1,200 books. It is now the world's leading publisher of books about photography, film and television.
Following his death, in 1989, Kraszna-Krausz's extensive personal library comprising several thousand volumes was bequeathed to the Museum. Through his generosity and that of the Foundation which now bears his name these books are now freely available in Insight for study by others who share his love of the language of pictures. The Museum would like to thank the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation for its generous support.