That is the question we hear a lot at the beginning of the new academic year as students explore Butler Library and end up here, in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, aka “The Pink Palace.” The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is Columbia’s principal repository for primary source collections. The range of collections […]
Category: Columbia University Archives
The RBML’s Fall 2019 Exhibitions
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New from RBML’s Archivists | August 2019
Head Archivist Kevin Schlottmann shares collections newly opened or updated by RBML’s Archivists. New finding aids Yehudah Joffe papers, 1893-1966, bulk 1920-1945 “The collection consists of Joffe’s correspondence, manuscripts/notes, and newspaper clippings. Joffe’s correspondence in Yiddish in English is both personal and professional, covering communication with institutions he was working at or hoping to work […]
A Tainted Gift: Why would an avowed fascist donate a letter from a Founding Father to Columbia?
In 1927, an Italian medievalist and prominent Fascist named Piero Misciattelli gifted to the Columbia University Libraries an autograph letter written by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello in 1821. Jefferson’s letter to Parisian booksellers DeBures Frères placing an order for his burgeoning library was, according to an extract from the Columbia Trustee Minutes of October 3, […]
Researcher Profile | Janelle Drone
We see you every day, handing you a lockers key as you walk in each morning, and receiving it back toward the end of the day. Most often you’re hunkered down over a particular archive, getting to understand a portion of one of our archives better than anyone who works in the RBML. We await […]