Mission
The mission of the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library (RBML) is to build world-class collections that fulfill the constantly developing interdisciplinary teaching and learning, research, and outreach needs of our diverse user constituencies, including the university’s faculty, undergraduate and graduate student populations, external researchers, K-12 audiences and the general public. RBML acquires new materials through donation and selective purchases, though occasionally materials from University Libraries’ general circulating collections or other University Libraries or university units may be added to RBML holdings with the approval of curators. Annually allocated acquisition funds and dedicated endowments are used to build our collections both strategically and tactically, and in ways that are responsive to the continually evolving needs of our users. RBML also accepts gift-in-kind donations of appropriate materials, from single items to larger collections. Whether acquired via purchase or donation, individual acquisitions decisions are based on a proposed item’s or collection’s relevance to the collection development policy; its relationship to materials already in the collection; its near- and long-term scholarly and pedagogical utility; its ability to support University Libraries’ commitment to offering users different cultural and historical perspectives; and potential continuing costs related to its ongoing stewardship (preservation, housing, etc.).
Scope
RBML’s holdings include materials produced across millennia, around the world and in a wide array of cultural, linguistic and subject areas, formats and media. Although our collecting foci are manifold, they all share the common purpose of providing the raw materials necessary to support the pedagogical and scholarly activities of a dynamic, primary source-based teaching and research laboratory. RBML’s primary areas of current collecting include:
Pre-Modern Literature and Manuscripts
RBML collects across the pre-modern literary and historical landscapes encompassing a wide range of linguistic, cultural and topical areas. In all cases, the materials we collect testify not just to their time and context(s) of creation and original use, but also to their ability to inform us about broader themes in book history, provenance studies and the history of reading. Our major areas of collecting focus include:
Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts (pre-1600)
RBML holds one of the largest collections of manuscript fragments in North America, as well as a substantial collection of codices and diplomatics. RBML collects across national, genre and linguistic boundaries in this area, with particular emphasis on items that contribute to active international fragmentology reconstruction programs; manuscripts of pastoral care; and fragments and codices offering useful and compelling opportunities for classroom teaching and outreach (odd or unique formats and layouts, evidence of direct reader interaction with texts, vernacular texts and unusual scribal and codicological features). When acquiring fragments, RBML actively strives to avoid the purchase of recent or new products of deliberate book-breaking. Given the state of Ohio’s central place in the history of American biblioclasm, RBML also pays particular attention to reconstruction efforts surrounding the book-breaking activities of Otto Ege and Bruce Ferrini.
Incunabula
RBML has a modest, but growing, collection of 15th-century printed books, with particular priorities for collection growth such as chronicles, pastoral care materials, books with substantial reader-added commentary and marginalia and editions of medieval texts represented within our manuscript codex collection.
German and English Reformation
RBML holds substantial materials related to the history, theology and polemic of the Reformation, with particular emphasis on the writings of Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon and their allies and opponents; Bible translation; John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments and broader traditions of Protestant and Catholic Martyrology; and the so-called “small voices of the Reformation,” or works revealing the thoughts and opinions of everyday people during this tumultuous period.
Early English Printing
RBML collects extensively across all areas of English printing from the 15th-18th centuries, with particular focus areas in:
- Renaissance Drama: Including individual plays in quarto format, larger assemblies and collections in folio and related materials such as historical works and/or works in other languages that inspired particular dramatic texts
- Astronomy/Astrology: Including astronomical treatises, works on comets and early almanacs
- Theology, popular religion and biblical translation
- History of magic, witchcraft and the occult
- Women authors, readers and book owners
Golden Age Spanish Drama
RBML holds hundreds of 16th -18th century play texts, along with a range of other materials related to Iberian and Colonial literature and performance. We actively collect comedias sueltas. loas, autos sacramentales, zarzuelas and entremeses/sainetes along with complementary materials such as ballads and villancicos.
Miguel Cervantes and Don Quixote
RBML holds the Talfourd P. Linn Cervantes Collection, one of North America’s most significant collections of works by Miguel Cervantes, ranging from a 1605 printing of Don Quixote and other 17th-century editions of his works through modern editions, adaptations and translations from around the world. RBML actively acquires editions not already owned and also seeks out materials revealing how Cervantes and his works have been adapted and repackaged for new purposes and audiences (such as advertising ephemera, the performing arts and select examples of merchandising and realia).
Latin American Colonial-era Printing
RBML collects selective Colonial-era Spanish/Portuguese materials, most specifically volumes that testify to and reflect the persistence of Indigenous cultures and languages and their interaction with, and influence upon, European colonizers from the 15th-18th centuries.
Historical Astronomy
RBML collects materials related to the pre-modern history and science of astronomy and its precursors, such as astrology (selectively). Existing collections are particularly strong in Western European materials; however, we are actively expanding our focus to include astronomical works reflecting other traditions of learning and practice.
Modern Literature and Manuscripts
RBML has substantial collections of modern literature, predominantly in English, but with select holdings of materials in other languages. Our major areas of collecting focus include:
American Literature
The William Charvat Collection of American Literature features one of the most extensive collections of American fiction in the world. RBML prioritizes American fiction published from the late-18th century to 1920, with more selective acquisition for titles published after this date based on a flexible and responsive approach to emerging literary, scholarly and curricular trends. RBML’s holdings of American fiction published through 1900 are among the strongest in the nation and are particularly robust for the period 1876-1920. In addition to fiction, RBML collects American poetry, literary nonfiction, life writing, little magazines and select periodicals, with a particular emphasis on 19th-century and early 20th-century authors.
- The Charvat Collection is named in honor of William Charvat, professor of American literature at The Ohio State University, who was a guiding force in the development of this collection. Learn more.
British Literature
RBML has strong holdings in modern British literature, including first editions of works by significant writers such as William Blake, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf; Victorian periodicals such as Household Words; important modernist magazines such as Blast; and select archival materials, including scrapbooks and correspondence related to Dylan Thomas.
Literary Archives
RBML holds an expansive collection of contemporary literary archives that document the creative, commercial and production processes behind published works. Materials include correspondence, manuscripts, drafts and ephemera. Significant collections include: Nelson Algren, Samuel Beckett, Louis Bromfield, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, Conjunctions (literary journal), William Corbett, Rikki Ducornet, Joanne Grant, Karen Harper, William Bradford Huie, Jessica Mitford, Rick Moody, Mysterious Press Records, Paul S. Powers, James Purdy, Helen Hooven Santmyer, the Sunwise Turn Bookshop, James Thurber, Frederic Tuten, William T. Vollmann and Carolyn Wells. In addition to continuing to selectively strengthen existing collections, RBML is interested in expanding its literary archives related to central Ohio writers, publishers, booksellers and other local literary endeavors such as the records of publisher Two Dollar Radio and the small press Monster House.
Irish Collection
RBML holds a significant collection of historic Irish literature, with particularly strong holdings in 20th-century materials and the works of Samuel Beckett (including manuscripts), and developing collections of 18th-19th century literary and historical works. Current areas of collecting interest include early Irish and Irish-American periodicals; materials related to the Easter Rising; 17th-18th-century political tracts; 18th-19th century literature by Irish authors; and the output of the Cuala Press (including ephemera related to its activities). The acquisition of current Irish poetry, drama, and fiction is supported by an approval plan.
Avant-Garde Writing
RBML holds an extensive collection of Avant materials, primarily of North American writers from the 1970s to the present, but with international materials from writers associated with the American authors represented in the collection. Particular areas of focus include visual poetry, mail art and Fluxus materials. RBML currently is focusing on acquiring select contemporary Avant publications, as well as historical examples of the movement from the early 19th to the early 20th centuries. Collections include: John M. Bennett, C. Merhl Bennett, Mary Jo Bole, K. S. Ernst, Sheila Murphy, Bern Porter, and Marilyn R. Rosenberg and Carol Stetser.
Historic Cookbooks
RBML’s largest cookbook collection is the Peter D. Franklin Cookbook Collection, which contains more than 9,000 volumes, with a particular focus on American culinary traditions. RBML also houses the Margaret Sila Barres Collection of Regional American Cookbooks, comprised of more than 1,500 volumes, several manuscript cookbooks from America and Europe (17th-20th centuries) and culinary ephemera, including advertising cookbooks and recipe boxes. RBML is continuing to selectively build its cookbook holdings, with a focus on 19th- and 20th-century American works.
Zines
RBML actively collects zines—self-published, inexpensively made, small circulation publications created for passion rather than profit—that document voices, perspectives, and experiences that may not be found in mainstream venues. RBML has substantial holdings in: LGBTQ zines from the 1980s-present; 1970s-1980s punk zines; Riot Grrrl zines; COVID-19 zines; and personal zines. RBML has a particular strength and collecting focus on zine making in central Ohio. Collections of note include the Nancy Kangas Papers, The Offense Newsletter, Anyways Records and Zines by Ohio Creators.
LGBTQ
RBML holds the Brett Shingledecker GLTB Collection, an archival collection documenting Shingledecker’s work as cofounder of the first exclusively gay and lesbian bookstore in Chicago as well as his activism during the 1980s and 1990s. The collection also contains more than 800 cataloged volumes, including books, magazines and zines. Additional collections with LGBTQ content include: William S. Burroughs Papers, the Bryan Knedler Papers on Gay Rights Advocacy, James Purdy Papers, Don Tunncliff Rice Collection of Radical Literature, LGBTQ Zine and Ephemera Collection, Paula Bennett Collection of Feminist and Lesbian Literature, and Glenn Scott Collection of Feminist and Lesbian Publications and Ephemera. RBML’s collecting in this area include zines, photographic archives, and manuscript material chronicling LGBTQ life and culture (particularly in Ohio and the Midwest), and historic, artistic and literary works testifying to LGBTQ life worldwide prior to the 20th century.
Women’s and Gender Studies
RBML houses several collections related to women’s history, with a particular emphasis on activism, feminism, and literature. Relevant collections include: Women’s Suffrage Collection; Women’s Studies Ephemera Collection; Collection of Second-Wave Feminism Posters; Rebecca Pixler Collection of Dealer Catalogs Pertaining to Women’s Literature and History; Paula Bennett Collection of Feminist and Lesbian Literature; Glenn Scott Collection of Feminist and Lesbian Publications and Ephemera, and diaries, journals, friendship albums, and scrapbooks. RBML is actively collecting on women and activism, and women’s social movements (generally but especially related to Ohio), with an emphasis on 19th–21st century American materials.
Trade Catalogue Collection
RBML continues to selectively develop the Ivan Gilbert Trade Catalog and Ephemera Collection, comprising more than 10,000 catalogs from the 1830s-1970s that feature a wide range of topics including agriculture, architecture, automobiles, clothing, food, gardening, medical supplies and tools.
History of Rhetoric, Oratory, and Elocution
RBML’s Jerry Tarver Collection of Elocution, Rhetoric and Oratory Ephemera and the Nan Johnson Collection on Elocution and Rhetoric focus on 19th-early-20th-century American materials, including books, ephemera and archival material on rhetorical and oratorical education and practice.
Historic Photograph Collection
RBML holds one of North America’s largest collections of 19th-century cased photographs, as well as extensive collections of 19th-21st century documentary, art and vernacular photography. Current collecting foci include materials illustrating different photographic processing techniques and technologies, select examples of 19th-century cased photography, vernacular photography exploring the lives of indigenous communities around the world, but particularly in the Americas, LGBTQ culture and experience and the experiences of American military veterans.
Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture (HJAL)
RBML is home to the HJAL, a growing collection that chronicles the history and development of architecture worldwide from the advent of printing to through the mid-20th century. Current areas of developing strength include 15th-17th-century Western European architecture, the Beaux-Arts movement, Soviet Constructivism, iron and steel architecture, 19th- and 20th-century East Asian architecture, Japanese tea house design and construction and photographic archives of individual architects and architectural firms. The HJAL will continue to collect in these areas, but is also actively seeking materials related to African, Eastern European, Near Eastern, Indian and Indigenous American architecture.
The Albrecht Library and Foundation was established and endowed by Robert S. and Margaret V. Albrecht in tribute to the career of the respected Ohio architect, Herman J. Albrecht, Robert's father.
UFOs
RBML has approximately 1,200 cataloged books and periodicals on UFOs as well as archival collections including the William E. Jones Collection of UFOs and the Karl Plfock UFO Collection.