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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Liturgical Books Goes Live

Liturgical Books presents the examples from the RBML of the various types of books used in the Middle Ages for the celebration of the Latin liturgy. This new resource is the result of the collaborative redesign of a web exhibit (Celebrating the Liturgy’s Books) designed by Consuelo Dutschke, Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Books until […]

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RBML – 2020 in Review

2020 was a year like no other.  It started normally enough, but on March 16, 2020, Columbia University closed its physical facilities as part of the New York State-mandated PAUSE that sought to control the spread of COVID. For months, staff were permitted onsite only for essential security and maintenance checks.  As restrictions loosened over […]

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