Archival material includes unpublished records such as letters, diaries, financial records, and photographs. Information about our archival collections may be found online in the Subject Guide to the Collections. You can also browse the A-Z list of archival collections (the link is below). Our finding aids are processed at different levels. Some include item-by-item level descriptions and others are processed at the folder or box level.
A strong print collection anchored by the works of Dickens, Ruskin, Tennyson, Thoreau, literary periodicals, and publishers’ bindings is amplified with discrete manuscript holdings. Collecting is currently guided by consideration for the intersectionality of existing collection strengths with the materiality of the book—the book as physical object and vehicle for the text and its marketing. Along with continuing to build existing print collections, areas of particular interest include: exemplars of developing binding and illustration technologies; Victorian medievalism; the “book beautiful”; and evidence of readership and ownership. See also the box above on Book and Printing History.
We hold the collections of record for a number of 20th century American and British authors. Some of these authors have a connection to Western or Update New York, including John Gardner and Jerre Mangione. These collections are larger and more complete than most of our 19th century collections and include strong print components.
