Microfilm?! Digitizing an old medium yields new discoveries

For many years, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library has been working with the National Library of Israel’s Manuscripts Department to include our digitized Hebrew manuscripts in KTIV, the International Database of Hebrew Manuscripts.  In the 1970s, Columbia Libraries created microfilms for about 700 of the Judaica manuscripts in its collection as part of a […]

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Plague, Passover, and Perspectives on Social Distancing (Dr. Joshua Teplitsky)

This essay was written by Joshua Teplitsky (Stony Brook University) for the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies’ Spring 2020 Magazine.  The full magazine can be downloaded on the IIJS website. As the global pandemic gains momentum and the human toll rises, many religious communities around the world are striving to balance physical health with […]

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News from RBML’s Archivists | March 2020

Columbia University Libraries (CUL) are closed until further notice to aid in the containment of COVID-19, RBML’s archivists  won’t be physically processing materials. We do, however, have these updates about our collections. Please be safe and take advantage of this time to engage with materials you may have collected on previous visits to the RBML. […]

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Collections News | January 2020

Here are some new and updated finding aids, reflecting work by archivists in archival processing, collections management, and university archives. – KWS Arthur Mitchell Papers “Arthur Mitchell (1934-2018) was an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and founder and director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. This collection contains materials related to his career as a dancer […]

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What is this place? A short intro to RBML

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 […]

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