The Collection

Ohio Wesleyan University's Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Artifacts collection contains materials illustrating various methods people have used to record transactions, thoughts, and knowledge in language forms: cuneiform writing in clay tablets; Greek on papyrus; sacred texts in Sanskrit on palm leaves, in Hebrew on a leather scroll, in Latin and Ge'ez in illuminated manuscripts on parchment; early printed books. It also includes many rare books and examples of 19th and 20th century writings.

Additionally, Special Collections at OWU houses artifacts such as pre-Columbian pottery from Bolivia, Anasazi and Lower Mississippi culture pottery, Asian and African artifacts, oriental carpets, chinaware, and paintings.

Noteworthy individual collections include:

The Bayley / Walt Whitman Collection, including first editions and photographs (view library catalog listings*)
The Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Collection, including books from their own library, art, and furniture (view library catalog listings*)
The Leland Schubert Collection of 1920s imprint first editions (view library catalog listings*)
The Gunsaulus medieval manuscripts and incunabula collection (view selected listings and digital exhibit)
The Kate Greenaway Collection (view library catalog listings*)
The Spanish Civil War Collection (view library catalog listings*)
The Jaccaud Collection of Presidential Campaign Literature (view library catalog listings*)
Early 20th century sheet music
The Paula B. and Thomas W. Harvey Collection of Civil War Letters (view digitized collection)
19th century photographs of the American Southwest
The Kelley circus and theater promotional materials collection
Asian art and artifacts (view digital images of selected OWU items on the ASIANetwork)

*Please note that library catalog listings do not include all materials in a collection, especially any nonbook materials.

OWU Instructors: Fall 2020 Update to Using Special Collections in Your Courses

We have plans to provide virtual instruction opportunities for OWU courses this fall. Stay tuned for more information, coming soon. You can also contact Stacy to learn more. I look forward to working with you!

Other resources: Digitized rare books, manuscripts, and artifacts from other institutions

Art Images for College Teaching
Art Institute of Chicago
British Museum
"You are permitted to use images from the British Museum website subject to our terms of use. ... For uses not covered under the Creative Commons license [i.e., Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)], or to license high-resolution versions of the images for commercial uses, you can contact the British Museum’s image service at bmimages.com."
CARLI Digital Collections
A repository for digital content from the collections of academic and research libraries in Illinois.
Columbus Museum of Art
Digital Images Collections Wiki
A "resource of Free- and Fair-Use digital image collections that are available for anyone to use for personal or educational purposes."
Explore Chicago
Search the content of over 20 digital libraries and archives in Chicago.
Google Art Project
Useful for viewing artwork; images cannot be downloaded.
Images d'Art
Database of the artworks from several French museums, including the Louvre, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Musée d'Orsay.
Images from the History of Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine
International Museum of Photography and Film (George Eastman House)
Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs
With detailed information on assessing rights and restrictions on the use of images in the collection at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html.
Life Magazine Archive
Luna Commons
Find historic images and photographs, but note that licensing may vary; some images may be free of copyright and others are not, so be sure to read the rights restrictions for the image you select.
The Met
Digital images of items in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection, including some in the public domain (identified using the Creative Commons designation).
MoMA
National Gallery of Art
NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art [in Washington D.C.]. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. ... More than 51,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration."
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Ohio State University Archives on Flickr
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University
Shared Shelf Commons
"Shared Shelf Commons is a free, open-access library of images." Search and browse digitized collections from over 40 participating colleges and institutions.
Smithsonian Institute Collections Search Center
Victoria and Albert Museum Collections
From "the world’s greatest museum of art and design."
Visual Collections (DavidRumsey.com / Cartography Associates)
"The Visual Collections site from Cartography Associates contains dozens of digital image collections from Museums, Universities and private collections throughout the world." It also includes several map collections. You will have access to the free collections.
Yale Digital Content