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Although our giving page is no longer active, you can still donate. If you would like to provide any additional support to our project, please do so here.
The Ohio State University Libraries' Rare Books & Manuscripts Library needs your help to fulfill its mission to put its materials – as rare and valuable as they are – right into people's hands. The library's collection encompasses more than 250,000 books, manuscripts, publications and other materials — from medieval manuscripts to examples of renaissance drama, American literary archives, historical architecture books, photographs, materials from WWI and WWII and much more. Every part of the collection, says curator Eric Johnson, is used by students and faculty.
"Our inclusive, hands-on approach helps foster an appreciation for the information these materials hold, spanning time periods and cultures, and the importance of a work's material form as a valuable artifact," Johnson says. "We're unique because we want the rare books and manuscripts to be actively used. I constantly fight the esoteric idea that these things are 'too good' or 'too valuable' to actually be used. It's important that they are."
The collections are used to advance research, facilitate discovery and encourage exploration, and are open to scholars, students and lifelong learners. They are the foundation of the "Medieval Manuscript Studies" course and are used in classes across Ohio State. Fulfilling the promise of Ohio State's land grant mission, works from the collection have been used to teach classes from nearly a dozen external colleges and universities. Most importantly, the materials provide students like Rose McCandless hands-on research opportunities.
Your donation supports the continued growth of these collections ensuring our students continue to experience the kind of educational experiences that set Ohio State apart from other universities.
Want to learn more about the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library? Join us October 28 for Preview Night, a virtual event celebrating the newest acquisitions for the collection.
This $50 donation could help us add zines and rare ephemera to our collection.
This $100 donation could help us add historic 19th-century photography to our collection.
This $250 donation could help us add a cookbook or other published material on recipes and food to the Peter D. Franklin Cookbook collection.
This $500 donation could help us add a book or other pre-1925 published material to the Charvat Collection of American Literature.
This $1,000 donation could help us digitize audiovisual materials to help make our collection more accessible, especially materials that are part of the Joanne Grant Papers.
This $2,500 donation could help us add original Renaissance drama texts to our collection.
This $5,000 donation could help us add unique manuscript material, from medieval to modern, to our collection.
