Libraries / Special Collections

Home Page: http://library.wustl.edu/

Rare Books - Incunabula (books printed before 1501); Western European imprints produced in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries representing all the disciplines for which Olin Library collects; 19th and 20th century British and American Literature, including St. Louis and westward expansion; book arts and typography, semeiology.

Manuscripts - Collections of literary papers, press archives, and magazine archives. The bulk of the collection consists of the papers of major twentieth-century literary figures including James Merrill, Samuel Beckett, Howard Nemerov, Stanley Elkin, William Gass, Mona Van Duyn, and many others.

University Archives - Washington University history, 20th century St. Louis history: politics, business, social welfare, and transportation.

Film and Media Archive - The Henry Hampton Collection is a unique archive of film and other materials used or created by Hampton's film production company - Blackside, Inc. - in producing many historic documentaries.

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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"Celebrating Our Books" Faculty book colloquium to feature Pulitzer Prize-winner Louis Menand Nov. 17 Nov. 5, 2009 -- Louis Menand Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist and literary critic Louis Menand will present the keynote address for "Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors," the university's eighth annual faculty book colloquium, at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, in Graham Chapel. The event — organized by the Center for the Humanities and University Libraries — also will feature presentations by faculty members William Lowry, Ph.D., professor of political science, and Lori Watt, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and International & Area Studies.

Poet and journalist Washington University Libraries adds Frank Marshall Davis Collection Oct. 8, 2009 -- Washington University Libraries' Film & Media Archive has partnered with the University of Hawaii-West Oahu to preserve and digitize an interview with African-American poet and journalist Frank Marshall Davis. Also preserved were photographs, news clippings and poetry readings by Davis, which along with the interview make up the Frank Marshall Davis Collection, a new addition to the holdings of the Film & Media Archive.

"When the Emporer Was Divine" author visits campus Freshman Reading Program selected author to speak for Assembly Series Sept. 3, 2009 -- Julie Otsuka will present the Assembly Series and Neureuther Library lecture at 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 15 in Graham Chapel. Otsuka's debut novel, "When the Emperor Was Divine" is this year's Freshman Reading Program selection.

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Faculty Experts:

Related News Clips:

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Scribes of the Digital Era Chronicle of Higher Education Jan. 26, 2006 -- Article on a library-scanning project that brings public-domain materials online and offers an alternative to Google's model. Internet Archive, is guiding a mass-digitization project called the Open Content Alliance, which was announced in October and is rapidly gaining partners. The alliance plans to take carefully selected collections of out-of-copyright books from libraries around the world and turn them into e-books that will be available free to scholars and anyone else who wants to view them, print them, or even download them to their own computers. WUSTL recently joined. Shirley Baker, vice chancellor for information technology and dean of university libraries, comments.

University library's collection tells story of secret codes Associated Press and St. Louis Post-Dispatch Aug. 15, 2005 -- The invention of the printing press didn't just make it easier to disseminate information, it made it easier to hide it, too -- as the collection of books in a vault at WUSTL shows. The books, some more than 500 years old, chronicle the history of secret codes -- some concealed so intricately that art professor Ken Botnick regularly shows them to his students. (Link also contains the text of the longer St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the collection.)

Malcolm X the thinker, brought into focus The New York Times, Art Daily and 1 others May 19, 2005 -- Preview of a major exhibition on Malcolm X at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The exhibition, a public look at his personal and professional papers and other artifacts, represents the opening of a vast trove that many scholars say will prompt new interpretations of the life and thinking of one of the most important black figures of the 20th century. In addition to family-owned material, some of the property in the exhibition comes from a collection at WUSTL and from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History in Detroit.