Libraries

Special Collections

The University of Cincinnati Libraries holds special collections material in libraries across campus.  Special collections are unique for many reasons. These reasons may include age, rarity or uniqueness, format, provenance, and comprensiveness.  UC Libraries Special Collections include both physical and digital collections.  Researchers frequently visit the University of Cincinnati Libraries' special collections from across the country and around the globe to conduct their research.

For more information on UC Libraries' special collections see the collection-specific contact information below.

 

Special Collections News

The Archives & Rare Books Library contains the University Archives, including the Records Management Program; the university’s Rare Books Collection; the Urban Studies Collection; the German-Americana Collection; and the Local Government Records Collection.

Website: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb.html
Email: archives@ucmail.uc.edu
Phone:  513-556-1959
Location:  The Archives and Rare Books Library is located on the 8th Floor of Blegen Library.   

The CCM Library has a number of special collections and some are stored at the Archives and Rare Books Library. Highlights include the Dale Warland Singers Archive, Thomas Shippers Collection, and the Spanish Antiphoner.

Website: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/ccm.html
Phone:  513-556-1970
Location:  The CCM Library is located on the 6th Floor of Blegen Library.

The Classics Library owns over 3,000 rare books and manuscripts and an equal number of important facsimiles of medieval manuscripts as well as a unique collection of c. 18,000 German dissertations and school bulletins, dated to the 17th-early 20th centuries, and a valuable collection of hundreds of army maps of the Mediterranean area. 

Website: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/classics.html
Phone:  513-556-1315
Location:  The Classics Library is located on the 4th Floor of Blegen Library.

The DAAP library has growing special collections comprised of artist’s books, architectural drawings and archives, handmade/fragile pop up books, rare elephant folios, and Cincinnati urban planning materials. The artists’ books collection contains several hundred one-of-kind, limited edition, rare, and hand-crafted books and objects. Interesting bindings and forms of the book are but one focus of the collection. Related to artist’s books is the entire limited-edition ten-year run of objects from “the Thing Quarterly,” a periodical in the form of objects designed by artists, writers, designers, filmmakers, and musicians. There is a collection of Mail art, art sent through the mail meant to be participatory, democratic, and meant to subvert the notion of “high art” and gallery/museum elitism. All these collections are available to students, scholars, and members of the general public.

Website: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/daap/collections.html
Phone:  513-556-1335
Location:  The DAAP Library is located in the Aronoff Center for Design and Art.

The Archives serves as a repository for items related to the history of the University of Cincinnati College of Law and Law Library. The Rare Books Collection contains rare and scholarly works on law.

Website:  https://law.uc.edu/education/library/archives.html
Contact:  Rhonda Wiseman - Phone:  513-556-0165, Email:  rhonda.wiseman@uc.edu
                Akram Sadeghi Pari - Phone:  513-556-0154, Email:  sadegha@ucmail.uc.edu

Featured collections in Science and Engineering: Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry (10,000 monographs, 7,000 journal volumes dating from the late 16th to mid-20th century), Isay Balinkin collection of Color and Light, Cincinnati Observatory collection, and the Geology Field Guidebook Collection.

Contact:  Ted Baldwin - Phone: 513-556-4211  Email: Ted.Baldwin@uc.edu

The Preservation Lab’s primary mission is to preserve and conserve the collections of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and the University of Cincinnati Libraries. 

Website: http://thepreservationlab.org/
Phone:  513-556-1389

The Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions contains archives, exhibits, realia, books and journals which focus on the history of the health sciences. The collection includes the archives of Albert B. Sabin, Henry J. Heimlich, Leland Clark and Charles Aring, over 100 video oral histories, a 19th century medical library (Mussey Collection), the largest anatomy book in the world (Mascagni) and many manuscripts and realia.

Website:  https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/hsl/winkler-center.html
Email:  chhp@ucmail.uc.edu
Phone:  513-558-5120
Location:  The Winkler Center is located in Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library on the University of Cincinnati's Medical Campus.