Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Columbia University)

Http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/rbml/about.html

General Information

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML), the home of many of Columbia's greatest treasures, is housed on the sixth floor of Butler Library. The range of the library's holdings spans more than 4,000 years, from cylinder seals created in Mesopotamia to artists' books on which the ink is barely dry. In addition to printed and manuscript resources, the library contains cuneiform tablets, papyri, ostraca, astronomical and mathematical instruments, maps, works of art, photographs, posters, early printing presses and papermaking equipment, type specimens, sound and moving image recordings, theater set models, puppets, masks, ephemera and memorabilia. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library includes unique and rare materials related to all subject areas, although other Columbia libraries hold much deeper collections of art and architecture, East Asian languages and literatures, health sciences, law, and music.

The current library facility was opened in 1984 and is comprised of the Alan and Margaret Kempner Exhibition Gallery, the Corliss Lamont Rare Book Reading Room, the George D. Woods Manuscript Reading Room, the Peter H. L. and Edith C. Chang Reading Room and Exhibition Gallery, the Reference Center given by the Ruth and Sanford Samuel Foundation, and the Donors Room.