“I’m Yingwen Huang and I arrange and describe archival collections in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, specifically historical manuscripts and documents in the Chinese language. My interests include East Asian languages, history, and culture. My favorite part of my job is making our collections more accessible to everyone and assisting researchers from all over the world in learning more about our collections and utilizing them.” Yingwen Huang ..read more

In celebration of Black History Month, we invite you to explore a few newly-available collections and recent acquisitions in our Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) that showcase the deep contributions of Black historians, thought leaders, and important figures in our archives. Amiri Baraka The RBML holds the papers of writer Amiria Baraka and an audio-visual collection that includes pieces from his work in film and media. Baraka authored numerous works of drama, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry and played an important role in the Black Arts Movement. A memo from Toni Morrison regarding ..read more

Q: Which part of the Libraries do you work in, and what’s your role? The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is Columbia University’s principal repository for special collections. The holdings include hundreds of thousands of rare books and nearly 80,000 linear feet of archival material, which are records created by people or institutions as they go about their activities that have enduring evidentiary value.  Our team of about 30 archivists, curators, collections managers, and public services staff stewards the collections in our care through their entire life, from acquisition and ..read more

Tomorrow, February 4th, the Lehman Center for American History begins its spring programming with “Chronic Complication: Diabetes, Amputations, and Race in America,” a lecture by Dr. Richard M. Mizelle, Jr., which is part of a continuing lecture series on the nexus of “Race, Inequality, and Health.” A collaboration between the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and the Department of History, the Lehman Center is dedicated to supporting and enhancing the study and teaching of history at Columbia University. Since its relaunch last fall, the center has committed itself to con ..read more

Curatorial Shorts, a series of talks presented by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) on Mondays at 4 p.m., offer an informal look at new research and findings from the library’s collections.  The first Curatorial Short will showcase the RBML holdings of Harry Stephen Keeler, a scholar of literary plots, a theorist of generic strategies, and all-around expert in hack writing. The event, led by Curator of Literature Melina Moe and Jenna Schoen of the Columbia University Department of English, will take place on Monday, February 1, at 4 p.m. Please register in advance to attend.&n ..read more

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Myrna Casas papers in the Latino Art and Activism Archives. The new collection contains a range of rich materials pertaining to the life and work of playwright Myrna Casas (1934-present), one of the most important Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latina playwrights of the twentieth century. “I will no longer have some of my family portraits or my first video at age five,” Casas said. “But for me, it is of great importance that my papers are deposited at Columbia University. Now, they will be ..read more

From seventeenth-century Japan to twentieth-century New York, the Libraries’ latest acquisitions span place and time, bridging countries and cultures and furthering the Libraries’ mission to support a global community of scholars. Here is a selection of new and noteworthy holdings from the Libraries’ special collections and archives and digital resources in women, gender, and sexuality studies. Distinctive Collections Sagabon Ise Monogatari. Sagabon (“Saga book”) is the generic name for publications produced by the printing studio of Soan Suminokura in Saga village (near Kyoto) in the early Ed ..read more

Kimberly Springer, curator of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s expansive oral history collections, commemorates past and present events, crafting a meaningful collection of diverse voices for future scholars ..read more

Columbia Libraries is very pleased to announce the launch of the website for the digitized data of the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. An accompanying guide to the use of the digitized materials with many supplementary materials is also available. The LCAAJ archive is an extraordinary resource for research in Yiddish studies that can shed much valuable light on language, ethnography, literature, folklore and music, anthropology, linguistics, Germanic and Slavic studies, and aspects of Central and East European history. The archive consists of over 600 interviews conducted ..read more