Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Rare Book & Manuscript Library

6th Floor East Butler Library
535 West 114th Street
New York, NY 10027, USA
rbml@library.columbia.edu
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library is Columbia University’s principal repository for special collections. We collect, preserve, describe, promote, and provide access to the material evidence of diverse individuals and activities in alignment with the University’s research and teaching mission. We build and steward deep collections in select subject areas and connect them to a global audience through reference, teaching, exhibitions, publications, and public programs.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Arthur Mitchell Collection, 1800s-2021, bulk 1934-2019

107 linear feet
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 with the New York City Ballet, and his later professional work with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and others. The collection includes administrative records, appointment books, correspondence, invitations, notes, notebooks, photographs, posters, programs, and audio and video recordings.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Robert Lax papers, 1938-1990

17 linear feet

Correspondence, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, and printed material of Lax. Included are letters of Mark and Dorothy Van Doren and Thomas Merton. The bulk of the collection is comprised of Lax's poetry and journal manuscripts, many written in Patmos and Kalymnos, Greece, and originally sent to Emil Antonucci of the Journeyman Press in New York for publication. Also, printed photographs and unprinted negatives of pictures taken by Lax, primarily in Greece.

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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

William H. Walter and George W. Walter Papers, 1844-1912; 1957-1967

2 linear feet
William H. Walter and his son, George W. Walter were mid to late 19th Century composers of devotional music that was used primarily in the Episcopal or Anglican faith. This collection primarily contains sheet music of hymns, canticles, and other forms of service music.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Maurice Peress papers, 1898-1923, 1950s-2017

55 linear feet
Maurice Peress (1930-2017) was an American orchestra conductor, arranger, author, and educator. The papers include audio and video recordings, clippings, contracts, correspondence, diaries, memorabilia, notebooks, photographs, posters, programs, research materials, reviews, scores, scrapbooks, and working files, sketches, and other materials.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Sidney Kramer papers and library, 1940s-1980s

176 linear feet

Papers and 50 boxes of paperback books.

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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Amiri Baraka papers, 1945-2015, bulk 1970s-2000s

219.5 linear feet
The Amiri Baraka Papers contains correspondence, writings, and the personal, political activism and teaching materials related to Amiri Baraka's career as a poet, writer, editor, activist, and teacher in the New York City Beat, Downtown, and Black Arts literary scenes from the 1960s through the 2000s. Included are manuscripts from Baraka's numerous books of poetry, non-fiction, fiction, plays, editorial work, and screenplays. The collection also features organizational and documentary materials relating to Baraka's university teaching and Newark, NJ-based Black radical activism, as well as audio/visual material, photographs, and printed material collected and created by Baraka.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Peter Schickele Papers, 1874-2013, bulk 1955-2013

56.5 linear feet
Peter Schickele (1935-2024) was an American composer, music educator, and satirist. He was best known for his comedy pieces composed by the fictional character P.D.Q. Bach. The collection contains manuscript and engraved scores and parts, sketches, revised and annotated copies of Schickele's work. In addition, the collection contains scripts of dramatic pieces or spoken introductions, correspondence, and memorabilia.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Paul Jarrico papers, 1914-2014

44 linear feet
Paul Jarrico (1929-1996) was a Hollywood screenwriter working in the studio system in the 1930s and 1940s. A lifelong communist, he was subpoenaed before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951. His refusal to comply with the Committee's questions saw him lose his job at RKO and placed on the so-called Hollywood "Blacklist." His films were marked by their marriage of art and politics, often commenting on the pressing issues of their time. Notably, his 1954 film Salt of the Earth, a collaboration between blacklisted filmmakers and the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, was regarded as a subversive critique of mid-century American capitalism.
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Phillip Borsos, 1992-1995 Box 35, Folder 4

, and other production documents relating to "Canticle for Leibowitz," "Pair of Kings," "Leonardo

Correspondence with and about film director Phillip Borsos. Also includes clippings, script drafts, and other production documents relating to "Canticle for Leibowitz," "Pair of Kings," "Leonardo." Includes a full script and outline for "Bull Boy" by Marlon Brando. Includes a proposal for a television series "The Grey Fox."

  1. Series IV: Professional files, 1936-1996
  2. Subseries IV.2: Teaching and filmmaking, 1936-1995
Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Ulysses Kay papers, 1894-2017, bulk 1938-1995

55.25 linear feet
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995) was a noted twentieth-century American composer. The collection includes audio reels, biographical materials, correspondence, diaries, phonograph records, photographs, programs, and scores.
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Virgil Thomson papers, 1920-1981

12.5 linear feet

Prose manuscripts, related correspondence, notes, printed material, and audio tapes of Thomson. Included are notes and drafts of many of Thomson's early articles, written while he was a student at Harvard University and in Paris, and numerous manuscripts of columns published in the HERALD TRIBUNE in the 1940s. Thomson's special interests reflected in these writings are modern music, American hymns, and the performance of music in Europe. Also, manuscripts and related material for six of Thomson's books and for Gertrude Stein's BEE TIME VINE, which was published after her death and for which he wrote the preface; and 125 reels of tapes of Thomson's program on radio station WNCN (New York), 1969-1970. Cataloged correspondents include Chalmers Clifton, Lincoln Kirstein, Alfred A. Knopf, and Man Ray.

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