The Archives & Rare Books Library acquires and provides access to special materials for research and instructional use by the local community and the scholarly world. It is responsible for the University Archives, Rare Books Collection, Records Management Program, the German-Americana Collection, and archival collections that are grouped primarily in the Urban Studies Collection and the Ohio Network Collection.
The Archives and Rare Books Library is open to the University community and the public Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except for University holidays. We ask that patrons make an appointment, especially if travelling from distances or doing genealogical research. Some of our material is stored in an offsite facility and will take one week to be made available.
All researchers will be asked to sign our guest registry and provide a photo ID at the time of each visit.
Photocopies can be made for 25 cents per page. Most rare books and some collections cannot be photocopied due to possible damage to the material, but it might be possible to take non-flash photographs.
Find brief descriptions of our archival holdings and links to finding aids on our website. Please check these pages occasionally as collections continue to be added. Adobe Reader will be needed to view some of the collection inventories. Many finding aids are also available on OhioLINK's Finding Aid Repository. Many collections are stored off-site. It will require up to a week to retrieve these boxes so please make any requests in advance.
Our rare book and reference holdings can be found in the UC Libraries catalog. Limit the location in your search to "Archives and Rare Books Library" to find only those books located in our collections.
The Archvies & Rare Books Library creates exhibits and image galleries designed to highlight our collections and to demonstrate the scope of our matierial and its value in historical research. See the entire scope on our Exhibits page
Some of our collections have been digitized and are available online:
