Edinburgh Zoo is opening a window onto more than 110 years of its past next month, with a newly digitised archive set to go on public display for the first time. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland said the collection, created with The University of Edinburgh’s Heritage Collections, will be shown at Lemur Lodge from 13 June to 21 June 2026.

The display will include never-before-seen photos, video and documents drawn from an archive that reaches back to the founding of the RZSS in 1909 and the opening of Edinburgh Zoo on 22 July 1913. Visitors will also be able to bring treasured keepsakes, while items from the University of Edinburgh’s Heritage Collections form part of Memories Week, a programme the zoo says is meant to bring people closer to its history and future.

That history is unusually rich for a place still drawing families through its gates every week. The zoo says it is home to 2,500 animals from around the world, and it is launching the exhibition at a time when conservation concerns remain urgent, with more than a million species at risk of extinction.

The archive itself is the weight of this announcement. It contains photographs, letters, maps and original papers that chart how the zoo developed over more than a century, and the collaboration with the university is designed to make that material easier to access and preserve for the long term.

David Field said sharing the archives more widely would help preserve Edinburgh Zoo’s legacy while inviting people to become part of it, learn how it began and leave inspired by its future. He said visitors have grown up with the zoo as part of their lives and that Memories Week is meant to celebrate its history while also helping safeguard its future, saving wildlife and connecting people with nature.

Daryl Green said the university and Edinburgh Zoo have shared a deep and enduring connection across many decades. He said the partnership is intended to provide long-term access to the zoo’s history and preserve the memories of visitors, staff and, above all, the animals that have shaped the last century.

The tension in the story is plain: the zoo is asking the public to look back through fragile papers and personal keepsakes at the same moment it is trying to remind them that its work is not about the past alone. Memories Week turns history into participation, but the larger purpose is conservation, and the exhibition is being framed as a way to connect the two.

For visitors, that means the display is not just an archive on a wall. It is a chance to see the records of a place that has been part of Edinburgh for generations, add a memory of their own and walk away with a clearer sense of what the zoo has been — and what it says it must continue to be.