Special Collections Division

General Information

 The importance of collecting rare and special books for use as unique research tools has been recognized by the Michigan State University Library since its beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1962, Special Collections was established with the charge to house these materials, as well as to build and preserve important research collections for scholarly use. Today, thanks to that commitment, Special Collections holds over 450,000 books in a wide range of subjects that help satisfy the needs of thousands of patrons who visit each year. Among the most important research collections are the Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection, the Veterinary Medicine Historical Collection, the Comic Art Collection, and the Cookery Collection. In addition to printed books, Special Collections features over 1,200 feet of manuscripts and archives, as well as a vast collection of ephemera housed in over 2,500 vertical files covering a myriad of popular topics and wide ranging viewpoints on political, social, cultural, and sexual issues in American life.

Hours

Open hours throughout the year are:

Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Additionally, during the academic year when classes are in session, we are open:

Wednesday 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sunday, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Special Collections Staff

Peter Berg
Kristine Baclawski
Gerald Paulins
Randall Scott

Reading privileges and rules

 Special Collections exists to preserve the heritage of the past and acquire important records of contemporary culture while making these materials available for use. The following rules are not devised to impede the use of materials, but rather to guarantee their preservation and orderly administration. We ask our readers to share our concern to conserve these resources by observing our regulations governing their use.

Special Collections materials may be used by Michigan State University faculty, staff, and students, and by other qualified persons. Appropriate identification (MSU I.D. or driver’s license) may be requested.

Special Collections stack areas are closed to the public. A request form must be presented to the staff person on duty who will retrieve the materials for use.

Material may be used in the reading room only and should be returned to the reading room desk when finished.

Only materials needed for note-taking may be taken to the reading tables. Coats, briefcases, backpacks, and other paraphernalia are to be left in space provided.

Only pencil or laptop computers may be used at the reading tables for note-taking.

Materials are to be handled carefully:

  • -Notebooks should not be placed on top of materials.
  • -Care should be taken not to lean on the materials.
  • -Tracing or notes of any kind are not to be made by placing paper on top of materials.
  • -Pages should be turned gently.
Photocopy service is available at cost when condition of material and copyright restrictions permit. Requests made within 30 minutes before closing may be filled the following the day; large orders may take longer. As a general rule, photocopying of manuscript material is prohibited.

Cell phone use is not permitted in the reading room.

Food and beverages are not permitted in the reading room.

Rare Books

 The Rare Book Collection holds over 100,000 volumes dating from the fifteenth century to the present representing a wide variety of areas for study and research. The following are brief descriptions of the most noted Rare Book collections.

Agriculture

As befitting the nation’s pioneer land grant college, there are strong holdings in early agriculture, especially English and American imprints, rare horticultural works, and an extensive collection of early European and American gardening and landscape planning titles. There is also a fine collection of farm equipment catalogs that provide a history of agricultural machinery from 1900 to 1935.

Veterinary Medicine

The Veterinary Medicine Historical Collection is recognized as one of the world’s great resources for the study of early veterinary medicine. The collection numbers over 1,400 books and 30 manuscripts on a variety of subjects that chronicles the arts and practices of the profession from as early as the fifteenth century up to 1850. For a catalog and further description of holdings please see http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/vetmed/

Natural History

 Since its beginning in 1855, the Library has collected rare and important works in natural history. Botany, entomology, ornithology, and zoology are especially well represented. An extensive collection of first edition works of Charles Darwin, a gift of the late professor Paul H. Barrett, is also featured.

Apiculture

 This outstanding collection originated as a gift in 1946 by the Pulitzer prize winning author and University graduate, Ray Stannard Baker, for whom the collection is named. It is strongest in English language books on bees printed before 1850, although it does hold important early works in other languages. For further description please see http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/agric/bees/bees.html

Fencing and Dueling

 A gift from Charles and Ruth Schmitter, MSU’s retired fencing coach and his wife, the collection has over 600 titles in some thirteen languages dating back to the sixteenth century. Manuals, histories, dueling codes, illustrated works, and cavalry tactics are represented here. An endowment to acquire future rare fencing books was established in 2001 in honor of coach Schmitter. More information on the Schmitter Collection can be found at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/fencing.htm

Italian Risorgimento

 The primary emphasis of this collection is on the central period of the unification of Italy, 1845-1870. It includes eyewitness accounts, works by significant political figures, many unique pamphlets, and complete runs of several important serial publications. The collection contains 300 volumes, 1,500 pamphlets, and 7,000 newspaper and periodical issues.

French Monarchy

 The collection chronicles all the French royal families and monarchial institutions, including the art and architecture of the periods. Imprints range from the early sixteenth century up through the eighteenth century.

Eighteenth Century British Studies

 The collection’s three thousand volumes cover a variety of topics for the time period 1660-1815. It is especially strong in English literature, history, natural history, agriculture, and cookery.

Cookery

 With over 7,000 cookbooks and food related titles, the Cookery Collection has cookbooks dating from as early as the sixteenth century up to the present from every continent. Areas of collecting interest include twentieth century American; African American; African and Caribbean; Jewish; and Michigan cookbooks. Selected titles from the collection are featured in Feeding America: the Historic American Cookbook Project at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/

Michigan Writers Collection

 Over the last several years a major effort has been underway to collect the published works and manuscripts of selected writers with ties to the state of Michigan. Some of these include Jim Harrison, Jim Daniels, Richard Ford, Carolyn Forche, Tom McGuane, Gary Gildner, Diane Wakoski, and Dan Gerber. More on the collection can be found at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/writer/index.htm. For information on the Michigan Writers Series see http://www.lib.msu.edu/vincent/writers/index.htm

Africana

 Special Collections has rich and varied Africana holdings, including early travel accounts, manuscript collections, British colonial fiction, cookbooks, comic art, political ephemera, and the African Activist Archive Project. More information may be found at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/africa/index.htm

Special Collections

 Over the years Special Collections has collected in broad areas that traditionally were neglected or undercollected in other special collections across the country. As a result, Special Collections holds one of the two most comprehensive popular culture collections in the United States, as well as several other large, distinguished special collections. A description of each follows.

Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection

 With over 250,000 items the Nye Collection is a major scholarly resource for the study of popular culture from the nineteenth century to the present. It is organized into categories of Comic Art, Science Fiction, Juvenile Literature, Popular Information, Textbooks, Westerns, and Performing Arts. While the emphasis for years was American popular culture, materials from other countries are now being collected as well. A large vertical file collection on a wide variety of popular topics supports and complements the collection. A more complete description of the Nye may be found at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/nye/index.htm

Radicalism Collection

 The collection includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, posters, and ephemera covering a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, economic, and cultural issues in the United States and throughout the world. It is strongest in publications of the American left beginning in the 1960s. There are also notable collections of underground newspapers, Christian right publications, alternative periodicals, Communist Party of the United States, and a large vertical file collection. More information is available at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/radicalism/index.htm

Changing Men Collection

 From an initial donation of material from the National Organization of Changing Men, this collection has grown to become the world’s largest collection of materials documenting all activities and branches of the contemporary men’s movement. This includes books, periodicals, vertical files, newsletters, pamphlets, and archival collections representing father’s rights, National Organization for Men Against Sexism, mytho-poetic groups, and men’s groups from around the world. For a list of periodicals held please see http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/radicalism/men/period.htm

Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgender Collection

 LGBT materials in Special collections are rich in a variety of formats covering several decades and ranging from magazines and newspapers, through literature both rare and popular, to archival collections. Over 800 serial titles represent magazines, entertainment guides, newspapers, newsletters, catalogs, and pride guides from all areas of the United States and other countries. The collection is strong in gay and lesbian “pulp paperbacks” from the 1950s through the 1970s, in addition to more recent transvestite and transsexual popular fiction. Historic pamphlets, leaflets, and manifestos represent the early gay and lesbian liberation movements. More information, including a list of serial holdings, is available at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/radicalism/glbt/index.htm

Ethnic Studies Collections

 African American Studies and Black History materials provide the researcher with assorted political and cultural holdings, rare books, and popular literature that help document the African American experience. Popular titles include numerous magazines, African American related film scripts, and 200 pieces of sheet music dating from the late nineteenth century. The civil rights movement and the Black Panther Party holdings are noteworthy, as is the availability of typescripts of the Black Women Oral History Project. Rare book holdings feature early works on slavery, the abolitionist movement, and a large collection of African American cookbooks dating from as early as 1828.

Latin American and Latino History and Culture is a fast growing collection of contemporary materials in a wide variety of fields and formats. Grape boycott bumper stickers, United Farm Workers’ pamphlets, Spanish language comics and fotonovelas, and small press poetry titles by Chicana and Chicano authors are all collected. The Mexican comics collection is the largest anywhere in the English speaking world and includes many of the works of Rius (Eduardo Reyes) in both English and Spanish.

Comic Art Collection

The Comic Art Collection holds over 200,000 items. Most of these items are comic books, but also included are over 1,000 books of collected newspaper comic strips, and several thousand books and periodicals about comics. Although some archival material and a few dozen pieces of original comic book and comic strip art are held, the focus of the collection is on published work, in an effort to present a complete picture of what the audience has seen, especially since the middle of the twentieth century. Franco-Belgian and Mexican comic book holdings are substantial. More information, including a list and index, will be found at http://www.lib.msu.edu/comics/index.htm

Manuscripts and Archives

Special Collections collects manuscripts and archival collections to support and complement existing print collections. Holdings are strongest in cookery, veterinary medicine, Michigan writers, and radicalism. A complete list of cataloged and uncataloged holdings are at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/rare/mss/numblist.htm

Michigan State University Libraries
Special Collections Division Home Page
URL: http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/about.htm
Last updated: November 24, 2004
Page editor: Randall W. Scott
scottr@msu.edu
MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution.