Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

A collection of letters, manuscripts, and documents relating to the history of printing and the graphic arts. The collection is in six parts. Cataloged Correspondence and manuscripts, including cataloged letters to and from Henry Lewis Bullen, the librarian of American Typefounders Company Library. Uncataloged letters of the Typographic Library, including routine correspondence, letters of inquiry to Bullen, the Library's order file, and library correspondence of Columbia University, 1941-1946, pertaining to the collection. Correspondence, manuscripts, documents and printed material by and relating to Henry L. Bullen. Letter books, ledgers, daybooks, and journals of the early American typefounders, Binney and Ronaldson. A collection of over 200 typographical patents for the design of printing types (19th and 20th centuries). Archives of the Companía Real de Impresores, Madrid, relating to its operations and business.

The incomplete records of the New York State Library School, Albany, 1890-1911. Included are diploma lists, grade sheets, examination questions, examination questions with corresponding set of students' answers, pass cards, senior certificate lists, an admissions application, entrance examinations, curriculum materials, and some documents for the class of 1890. Also, records of the New York State Library School Association, Incorporated. In addition to letters from such prominent American librarians as Katharine L. Sharp, Joseph Wheeler, Ralph Munn, and James I. Wyer, there are minutes, reports, memoranda, and printed documents, including the Association's constitution. There is a scrapbook of blanks and forms used in the executive departments of U.S. libraries in 1893, mounted by the N.Y. State Library School for the American Library Association World's Columbian Exposition Comparative Library Exhibit (Chicago, 1893). Also, files of the school consisting of course materials, exams, publications of the School, student records, admission files, class lists and rankings, and some related correspondence.

The collection of circa 5,000 manuscript catalogs, mostly catalogs of Medieval and Renaissance Greek and Latin manuscripts in libraries around the world, as well as of archival collections in the United States. Regular-size materials are shelved as a browsable reference collection in public areas within RBML. The classification scheme largely arranges the catalogs by the country, city and library the catalog represents. Check both the card and the online catalogs for these works.

Catalogs of Incunabula collections in other institutions, classified in Book Arts Dewey scheme (019.19) but shelved as a separate collection. Not individually cataloged in CLIO

Catalogs issued by the principal book dealers and book auctions houses. Catalogs, that were received both via the Acquisitions department and from dealers directly, are largely from New York dealers, but also include other US, British and European firms.This collection spans the 20th century with some 19th century issues. Cataloged individually in CLIO in early 2000s with prefix SALECAT The 21st century catalogs are no longer individually cataloged. Selected titles are kept, arranged and described as an archival collection of the same name (Bib ID: 15329754) in paper or electronic versions.

The collection consists of the editorial and production archives of Random House, Inc. from its founding in 1925 to the 1990s. The correspondence and editorial files include many of the prominent novelists and short story writers from 20th-century American and European literature: Saul Bellow; Erskine Caldwell; Truman Capote; William Faulkner; Sinclair Lewis; André Malraux; Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder. Among the poets there are files for W. H. Auden; Allen Ginsberg; Robinson Jeffers; Robert Lowell; and Stephen Spender. In the area of theater there are files for Maxwell Anderson; Moss Hart; Lillian Hellman; Eugene O'Neill; and Tennessee Williams. Random House transacted business with many fine presses and noted typographers and the archives contain files for Nonesuch Press, Grabhorn Press and Golden Cockerel Press, as wll as for Bruce Rogers, Valenti Angelo, and Edwin, Jane, and Robert Grabhorn.

Collection contains watercolor renderings, sketches, technical drawings (ground plans, elevations and details), photographs, glass plate and acetate negatives, scrapbooks, set models and some related papers covering Urban's career in Vienna and New York as an architect, set designer, decorator and illustrator. There is a thorough representation of his New York career including his set designs for Florenz Ziegfeld (1915-1932) and the Metropolitan Opera (1917-1933). The collection also contains information on Urban's work for William Randolph Hearst as art director for Cosmopolitan Studios, his exhibitions including his 1921 Wiener Werkstätte store, and his many architectural projects. Biographical information and research gathered by Richard Cole and Randolph Carter including contributions from his daughter,Gretl Urban, and biographical notes and some letters from his widow, Mary Urban, are also present.