Overview of the Collections
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML) holds over 600,000 rare books in some 30 book collections and almost 28 million manuscripts filed in nearly 3000 separate manuscript collections. It is particularly strong in English and American literature and history, classical authors, children's literature, education, mathematics and astronomy, economics and banking, philanthropy, social welfare and social work, photography, the history of printing, New York City politics, librarianship, theater history, and the performing arts.
RBML divides its collections into two departments: Manuscripts and Books. There is much overlap between the two departments: manuscript collections often contain printed material and vice versa, art and audiovisual materials can be found in holdings of both departments. Individual collections are as eclectic as they are extensive. The majority of materials in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library are not listed in CLIO. For an overview of various catalogs and finding aids please see Locating Books and Printed Materials and Locating Archival Materials. Librarians in the RBML are also available to help you locate material useful to your research.
For information on microfilms and photographs from the RBML collections please see the Services page.
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library was the victim of a thief who stole a number of books and manuscripts in the spring of 1994. The list of items still missing from our collections is available here.
The Manuscript Department
The Manuscript Department is the University\'s principal repository for collections of original letters, manuscripts, recordings and other archival documents. The holdings include important original resources in nearly all subjects and academic disciplines. A number of finding aids are available online, the rest are available in hard copy at the RBML reference center. Click here for information on how to locate archival materials in RBML.
Major subject areas and representative collections:
- American History: major collections of the papers of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Dewitt Clinton, Nicholas Murray Butler, Frances Perkins, Wellington Koo, Bella Abzug, and the L. S. Alexander Gumby Collection of Negroiana.
- American literature: correspondence and literary manuscripts of Hart Crane, Stephen Crane, Lionel Trilling, Allen Ginsberg, Dawn Powell, Tennessee Williams, and John Howard Griffin.
- Human rights and social services organizations: the papers of Lillian Wald, Varian Fry, Paul Lazarsfeld, and Whitney M. Young, Jr., the Community Service Society, the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China, the Spanish Refugee and Relief Organization, and Human Rights Watch.
- Book arts and typography: the American Typefounders Company library and museum, major collections of original art work of Arthur Rackham and Rockwell Kent, and the archives of Vincent FitzGerald & Company.
- The publishing industry: the archives of Harper & Brothers, Harper & Row, Random House, W. W. Norton, Kulchur Press, and Vanguard Press, and the archives of literary agents such as Paul Revere Reynolds, Curtis Brown Ltd., Harold Matson Company, Inc., and Annie Laurie Williams.
- Theater and film collections: the Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum, as well as papers of documentary filmmakers Pare Lorentz and Robert Flaherty, stage designer and architect Joseph Urban, playwrights Tennessee Williams, and Sam and Bela Spewack, and director, designer, and performance artist Robert Wilson.
- Music collections: significant holds of the papers and manuscripts of Hector Berlioz, Edward MacDowell, Bela Bartok, Douglas Moore, Jerome Moross, and Sid Ramin.
- The sciences: the historical and professional papers of David Eugene Smith; the papers of the inventors Edwin H. Armstrong and Earl I. Sponable; professors of physics George B. Pegram and Michael I. Pupin; chemists Charles F. Chandler and Louis P. Hammett; and psychotherapist Otto Rank.
- Economics-related collections: the papers of professors John Bates Clark, John Maurice Clark, Joseph Dorfman, Wesley Clair Mitchell, and Edwin R. A. Seligman, and Nobel Prize winner William S. Vickery, as well as the papers of Citibank founder Frank Vanderlip and World Bank president George W. Woods.
- International affairs: the papers of Andrew Cordier, James T. Shotwell, the Institute for Pacific Relations, and the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction. See also Bakhmeteff Archive, Carnegie Collections, and Lehman Papers below.
- Journalism: the papers of Sidney Howard Gay, Lincoln Steffens, Daniel Longwell, Herbert L. Matthews, Dorothy Norman, Harrison Salisbury and the Pulitzer Prize Awards.
- Chang Papers: Including diaries, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, published materials, and memorabilia documenting the life of Peter H. L. Chang (Zhang Xueliang) and Edith Chao Chang.
The RBML Manuscript Department also includes four groups of materials with dedicated curators:
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Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture The Archive\'s collection focuses on émigré communities from Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as American views of the area and our relations with it. The Archive contains approximately one million eight hundred thousand items in over 1500 collections dating from the 15th through the 21st century and attracts more then a thousand researchers each year. |
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Archives of the Institutions Endowed by Andrew Carnegie The Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University is the repository for the records of four philanthropic organizations founded and endowed by the Scottish steel magnate Andrew Carnegie: Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT), and Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). |
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The Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research is being established to collect, process, preserve, make available for research, and display the historic records of various human rights organizations. Currently holding over 3000 linear feet of documents from the archives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA, the Center will be open and provide equal access to scholars, students, human rights activists and the larger public. |
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The Herbert H. Lehman Suite & Papers The Lehman Suite holds the personal and professional papers of Herbert H. Lehman — lieutenant governor, governor, and senator of New York, and Director General of the United Nations\' Relief and Rehabilitation Administration — and the papers of a number of his associates, including those of his wife and brother-in-law, Edith Altschul Lehman and Frank Altschul. The 1.25 million items include files of correspondence with every president from Hoover to Nixon, clippings, photographs, and speeches. |
The Rare Book Department
The Rare Book department is divided into more then 30 named collections. It is particularly strong in English and American literature and history, American literary annuals, the classics, Edwardian and Georgian poetry, the Beat Movement, the literature of European political movements, history of mathematics and astronomy, the history and science of photography, the history of printing and typography, type specimens, polar exploration, and medieval and renaissance manuscript catalogs. "Books" includes not only printed books, but Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts and other codex manuscripts, art, sound recordings, and ephemera. Click here for information on how to locate a rare book in RBML.
Prominent rare book collections:
- The Book Arts Collection was started by Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, the first Rare Books Curator. By 1941, this collection was greatly augmented by the purchase of the library of the American Type Founders Company, one of the greatest collections of its kind in the world. Added to through gift and purchase, the Book Arts Collection, supplemented by the Graphic Arts Collection, is rich in the working tools of the graphic arts as well as the final products of commercial and fine press printers and book artists.
- The Brander Matthews Dramatic Library contains significant English and American theatrical material as well as a notable collection of Moliere holdings. In addition, the collection has playbills, programs, memorabilia, photographs, drawings, manuscripts, and theater and set models.
- The Johnson collection comprises books that belonged to the first president of King\'s College, Samuel Johnson, and the first president of Columbia College, William Samuel Johnson.
- Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts range chronologically from the eighth century through the twentieth, with the majority in the fifteenth century. The core and focus of the collection are the almost 400 codices or fragments bequeathed by George Arthur Plimpton in 1936. Also in the collection are some 400 other manuscript codices, and over 700 medieval or renaissance documents of archival or legal origins.
- The Stephen Whitney Phoenix collection was the first major donation of rare books given to Columbia College, received by bequest in 1881. Among its treasures are a magnificent fiftienth-century book of hours; Caxton\'s 1489 printing of Christine de Pisan\'s Fayte of Armes and Chyvalry; emblem books; an outstanding collection of nineteenth-century illustrated books, such as George Catlin\'s North American Indians; a first folio of Shakespeare; and a large collection of travel books.
- The George Arthur Plimpton collection is a major collection of notable works, both printed and manuscript, on the "liberal arts" - what the collector called "our tools of learning." It is particularly strong in grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, astronomy and handwriting.
- The Edwin R. A. Seligman collection is renowned for its books on economics and banking and includes the library of American finance, formed during 1830-1880 by Albert Bolles, all of the works written by Alexander Hamilton, the Francis Place collection of pamphlets related to Chartism, and the classics of economic thinking.
- The David Eugene Smith collection, which he gave to Columbia in 1931, comprehensively covers the history of mathematics and astronomy from the eleventh century to the early decades of the twentieth century. It includes both printed and manuscript materials, as well as significant holdings of Arabic and Persian manuscripts, and Chinese and Japanese printed materials.
- Other collections [complete list under construction]. The RBML also holds the Edwin Patrick Kilroe collection of Tammaniana, the Gonzalez Lodge collection of classical literature, the Edward Epstean collection on the history and science of photography, and many others.
Oral History Research Office
The Columbia University Oral History Research Office is the oldest and largest organized oral history program in the world. Founded in 1948 by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Allan Nevins, the oral history collection now contains nearly 8,000 taped memoirs, and nearly 1,000,000 pages of transcript. After registering with the Oral History Office, researchers can read the transcripts in the RBML reading room.
Digital projects using RBML materials
Advanced Papyrological Information System APIS is a collaborative online database and library of digitized images of papyri and ostraca (potsherds with incriptions) dating from the period 400 BCE to 800 CE. By 2002 the APIS database contained some 18,000 catalog records reflecting the complete papyrological collections of Columbia, Duke, Princeton, Berkeley, Michigan and Yale. High quality digital images of approximately 7,000 of these items have been linked to the database. Additional North American papyrus collections are currently being added, with European partnerships in the planning stage. APIS has been funded in large part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Digital Scriptorium The Digital Scriptorium, funded by grants from the Mellon Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, began as a joint project of the Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley) and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University to digitize and make available on the World Wide Web cataloging and selected images from the two universities\' medieval and Renaissance manuscript collections. Between 1999 and 2002, additional holdings from Huntington Library, the University of Texas, Austin, and the New York Public Library have also been incorporated, along with those of a number of smaller collections. As of July 2002, the Digital Scriptorium includes some 4,000 catalog records and 15,000 digitized images; planning is moving forward to bring in other North American and European collections.
The Joseph Urban Stage Design Models and Documents (2002-2004). This project preserves 240 three-dimensional stage models created by Joseph Urban for New York theaters between 1914-1933, including productions for the Ziegfeld Follies, the Metropolitan Opera, and a variety of Broadway theaters. Columbia was awarded $207,289 by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to stabilize and rehouse the extremely fragile set models so that they can safely be examined by researchers. The project will also create and link digital images of related stage design documents and drawings to the existing online finding aid.
The Papers of John Jay An online index to all known documents (correspondence, memos, diaries, etc.) written by or to the American statesman John Jay (1745-1829). Some 13,000 complete documents are indexed and approximately 25,000 page images - ca. 25% of the collection - have been scanned and linked to the index.
