Library Overview

Tracing its founding to the establishment of Cincinnati College in 1819, the University of Cincinnati acquires and provides access to special materials for research and instructional use by its faculty and students, as well as the local community and the scholarly world. The holdings in the Archives and Rare Books Library include the University Archives; the German-Americana collection of both published and archival material; and the Urban Studies Archive of 20th- and 21st-century community organizations, politics, and urban culture. In the Rare Books Collection, major strengths include thousands of 18th-century British anonymous poetical pamphlets, drama, and homiletics; first issues and first editions of Dickens; the Charles J. Livingood Petrarch Collection; the Edward S. Curtis portfolios of American Indians; early travel, and exploration; and the Enoch T. Carson Shakespeare Collection. In recent years, an emphasis on the history of the book has seen additions of incunabula, pochoir-illustrated volumes, William Morris and Kelmscott Press titles, and various works by book artist Barry Moser. The Archives and Rare Books Library also houses the rare volumes of the university's John Miller Burnam Classics Library.

Special collections of the University of Cincinnati are also found in the Chemistry-Biology Library where the Ralph E. Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry contain more than 3,200 journals and monographs dating from 1600 to 1920, supplemented by the Apparatus Museum and the Oesper Collection of Prints and Portraits. In Langsam Library, the George Elliston Poetry Room is an endowed collection of more than 10,000 volumes of modern English-language poetry. The library of the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning holds a large collection of artists' books that represent the work of local artists, University of Cincinnati students, and nationally recognized book artists.

University of Cincinnati Libraries
Administration Office
PO Box 210033
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0033
http://www.libraries.uc.edu/
(513) 556-1515 (t)
(513) 556-0325 (f)