NYPL Library School Records: A Student Project

At the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML), we are fortunate to have dedicated and curious students who help us maintain and provide access to our collections. Just this past year, Itzel Franco (CC 2026) and Sarah Noon (GS 2024) helped us improve the condition and description of a brittle but valuable collection of records […]

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Archivist’s Pick: A Glance at the Chinese Republican Era and Beyond

At the RBML, we recently installed a small exhibition in the Archivist’s Pick Cubes on materials related to Chinese history and culture, pertaining to the people of the Chinese Republican era (1912-1949) and beyond. These materials were acquired through Columbia affiliates such as alumni, professors, and their family and friends. Many were Chinese intellectuals, diplomats, […]

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Extras Between The Sheets

The work of archival and rare book processors is truly fascinating and never-ending. At RBML, we take great pleasure in exploring beyond the obvious and discovering curious and surprising artifacts left behind between pages and amidst letters for years, decades, and even centuries.  These treasures come in varying formats, subjects, and meanings, some of them […]

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A Digital Treasure Trove!

A year ago, as we began working remotely with no access to our physical materials, we found ourselves relying very heavily on previously digitized publications and images to help answer reference requests. One of the best tools we found was Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) from HathiTrust. This temporary service (still in effect as of […]

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