William S. Burroughs’ Dream Machine

RBML collects more than just books and manuscripts; we also have a lot of what librarians call realia—real life objects. Pictured here is our Dream Machine, which comes from William S. Burroughs, via his collaborator & one time assistant Steven Lowe. The Dream Machine is a simple device: a slotted cardboard cylinder is mounted on […]

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Saving Printing History

One of the exhibitions currently on view is “‘A Unique Museum’: How Henry Lewis Bullen Saved Printing History,” which we put on in honor of the American Printing History Association’s conference “Saving the History of Printing,” held at The Grolier Club and Columbia University on October 10-12, 2008, to discuss the preservation of the primary […]

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Let us begin.

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML) has huge collections of books, manuscripts, and other materials. Our web page, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/rbml/index.html, has information about the scope of the collection and the finding aids. (Our soon-to-be released new web page will describe it all more thoroughly — stay tuned.) This blog is intended to highlight particular items […]

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