Kodak's extensive archive of documents and images, which chart the history of photography over more than 120 years, is to go on show as the British Library's main winter exhibition.

The photography company has donated its archive collection to the facility for the exhibition, which will open in October, while important photographic journals have been acquired by De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester. Artefacts from the collection date back to 1885, when the Kodak Company opened its first offices in London as a subsidiary of the US-based Eastman Kodak Company, as well as Kodak publications dating back to 1928.

,p> The archive was first formed in 1977, when the exhibits of the Kodak Museum were divided according to historical significance, with some items donated to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television at Bradford in 1985.

John Falconer, head of visual materials at the British Library, said: "The Library is delighted to acquire such a significant collection as the Kodak Archive, which we will make available to researchers in our St Pancras Reading Rooms in perpetuity. "It will form a unique resource for the study of the growth and development of photography as a professional tool and popular amusement from the 1890s onwards."

The donation of the journals to DMU will help postgraduate students studying at the university's Centre for Photographic History. Image: Photograph of Kodak's Clerkenwell premises