Rare Books and Manuscripts: Collections

Finding Aids/Guides for RBMS Collections:

Please note that this list does not represent all of the collections in Rare Books and Manuscripts, but merely those finding aids/guides that have been converted to a digital format. This conversion project is ongoing, so do check back later for additions.  In the meantime you may also wish to browse a master list of Rare Books and Charvat American Fiction collections that we are compiling in a spreadsheet, sorted by an assigned keyword.  Please use the "find" function in Excel or sort by any category.

See also separate menus for:
Avant Writing Collections
Charvat American Fiction Literary Manuscript Collections

Check the bottom of the page  for some Special Projects using our collections.

Amish (RARE.CMS.336)
Amish Ephemera Collection

Arion Press
Rare Books and Manuscripts collects Arion Press limited edition books and broadsides.  These are cataloged individually, but can be accessed via an author search on "Arion Press."  The publisher's list is also available.

Avant Writing Collection
Contemporary writers working in poetry and visual poetry, but also prose, and in numerous transgeneric forms not easily classified. Many of them are also involved with visual arts, photography, sound art, music, performance, conceptual art, mail art, and/or artists’ books.

Bennett (RARE.CMS.119)
The John W. Bennett Papers

Bellows
The George Bellows Record Books

Billig (RARE.CMS.174)
Elisabeth Billig Papers (with an emphasis on the Nuremberg Trials)

Bourguignon (RARE.CMS.298)
The Paul-Henri Bourguignon Haiti Photograph Collection, 1947-1948

Buser (RARE.CMS.319)
Charles and Patricia Buser Collection of Research Materials on Native American Cultures

Cervantes Collection
The Talfourd P. Linn Cervantes Collection

Cooper
The Donald B. Cooper Collection: Epidemic Disease and Medicine in Brazil and Latin America.

Cornell (RARE.CMS.120)
The John B. Cornell Collection

Cuala Press
The Irish Collection of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at the Ohio State University Libraries owns over eighty percent of the titles published by the Cuala Press.

Day
The John Day Collection

Dryden
The John Dryden Collection

Dun Emer Press
see Cuala Press

Eberly
Eberly Family Bible

Egan (RARE.CMS.114)
The Michael Egan Collection

English Poetry collections
16th & 17th centuries

Film and Play Scripts (RARE.CMS.53)
Over 700 scripts

Finn (RARE.CMS.122)
The Mike Finn Collection

Fisher (RARE.7)
The Edgar J. Fisher Collection

Foxe
The John Foxe Collection

Franklin
The Peter D. Franklin Cookbook Collection

Gilbert Collection of Stephens Family Letters and Ephemera (RARE.CMS.327)
Dr. Ivan S. Gilbert Collection of Stephens Family Travel Letters and Ephemera

Gilbert Collection of Trade Catalogs (RARE.CMS.333)
Dr. Ivan Gilbert Trade Catalog & Ephemera Collection

Granary Books
Rare Books and Manuscripts has a standing order to receive every artist's book released by this respected publisher.  To find them, perform a keyword search in the library catalog for "Granary Books Collection."  An exhibition of selected works from the collection was held early in 2010.

Hellmer (RARE.CMS.168)
Papers of the German-born New York producer and director, Arthur Hellmer.

Highlights for Children Collection (RARE.CMS.351)
Highlights for Children is an American children's magazine based in Columbus, Ohio. The collection includes copies of the magazine, selected children’s submissions, and the personal papers of Highlights founder Dr. Garry Cleveland Myers.

Housman, A. E. (RARE.CMS.353)
Alfred Edward Housman’s manuscript poems

Irish Collection
see also: Cuala Press

Manuscript and Early Printed Book Leaves (RARE.CMS.113)

May (RARE.CMS.106)
The Ena May Collection (1)

May (RARE.CMS.115)
The Ena May Collection (2)

McCarthy (RARE.CMS.354)
Joseph McCarthy (lyricist) Papers

Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Books   (Highlights of the Collection)

Mysterious Press (RARE.CMS.383)
Archives and publications of Mysterious Press

Native American Language and Culture(RARE.CMS.319)
Charles and Patricia Buser Collection of Research Materials on Native American Cultures

Ohio Railroad Archive (RARE.CMS.338)
Letters and documents relating to railroads in the state of Ohio dating from 1889-1890s.

Peers (MS.AMER.56)
The Valentine Peers Collection

Photographs
includes photograph collections of Harry Callahan, Harold Edgerton, Farm Security Administration, Arthur Fellig (Weegee,) Man Ray, Ohio News Photographers Association, Works Progress Administration, and the Floyd and Marion Rinhart Collection of daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes, and others

Pudding House (CMS.100)
The Pudding House Collection

Pudding House (CMS.132)
The Pudding House Collection, 2002-2008

Reformation Collection
The Harold J. Grimm Reformation Collection.

Schwartz (RARE.CMS.226)
Lillian Feldman Schwartz Art Collection and Archive

Spenser
The Edmund Spenser Collection

Springfield, Ohio Archive (RARE.CMS.352)
Payment notes, city council ordinances, and other pieces of official Springfield, Ohio papers from 1856-69.

Stephan (RARE.CMS.307)
Alexander Stephan collection of FBI Files on German Intellectuals in US Exile

Stephens Family Letters and Ephemera (SPEC.RARE.CMS.327)
Dr. Ivan S. Gilbert Collection of Stephens Family Travel Letters and Ephemera

Stevens- Cox
James Stevens-Cox Collection of STC-SIGLA books

Suyemoto (RARE.CMS.161)
The Toyo Suyemoto (Kawakami) Collection

Tarver (RARE.76)
The Jerry Tarver Elocution, Rhetoric and Oratory Collection

The Third Republic/Troisième République (RARE.CMS.288)
Archive of the editor William Logue.

Trade Catalogs (SPEC.RARE.CMS.333)
Dr. Ivan Gilbert Trade Catalog & Ephemera Collection

Vegetation Maps - Ohio Counties
Collected by Professor Emeritus Ronald Stuckey of the Plant Biology Department

Wolfe (RARE.CMS.313)
Albert Benedict Wolfe Collection of Early 20th Century Materials on Population Control

Women's Studies Ephemera Collection (RARE.CMS.310)
Collected by Linda Krikos, former Women's Studies librarian at OSU

Women's Suffrage Collection (RARE,CMS.287)
A collection of early 20th century materials addressing the vote for women

World War I primary source materials

World War II primary source materials

 Special Projects Using RBMS Collections:

Henry Bellingham's Book
A Seventeenth Century Commonplace Book

Haiti 1947-1948
Paul Bourguignon Photo Collection

Manuscripta aesculea: A Selection of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts from The Ohio State University Rare Books & Manuscripts Library 

Samuel Sullivan Cox's "Journal of a Tour to Europe" (Spec.Rare.73)

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne's Letters to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (Spec.MMS.138)

Occupied Japan
Photos and documents of an OSU anthropologist, 1948-1951

Ohio State at Michigan / Michigan at Ohio State
Complementary Library Collections at Two Leading Midwestern Institutions

A Journey Through Time with Thomas More's Utopia

A selection of papers from the Valentine Peers collection (Spec.MS.Amer.56)

Textimagepoem (Leftwich blog archive)