The New York metropolitain area is chock full of primary sources in literature! This page lists some collections that could be prove to be useful to your studies. If you're interested in visiting another library or special collection, check whether they are open to the public. If they are not, contact the reference desk and we'll do our best to help you gain access to the collection. Most likely we'll be able to provide you with a METRO Referral Card.
- Archival Collections Portal (Columbia University)
- Search Columbia's archives and special collections here.
- Barnard Zine Library (Barnard College)
- Barnard's zines are written by women (cis- and transgender) with an emphasis on zines by women of color. We collect zines on feminism and femme identity by people of all genders. The zines are personal and political publications on activism, anarchism, body image, third wave feminism, gender, parenting, queer community, riot grrrl, sexual assault, trans experience, and other topics.
- C.V. Starr East Asian Library (Columbia Unviersity)
- The C. V. Starr East Asian Library owns many rare and unique materials in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, and Western languages. These non-circulating materials, which include valuable art folios and special collections, are available for use by readers in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room.
- The Fales Library & Special Collections (NYU)
- The Fales Library, comprising nearly 200,000 volumes, close to 9,000 linear feet of archive and manuscript materials, and about 65,000 media elements, houses the Fales Collection of rare books and manuscripts in English and American literature, the Downtown Collection, the Food and Cookery Collection, the Riot Grrrl Collection, and the general Special Collections of the NYU Libraries.
- Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature (NYPL)
- The original collection, confined primarily to Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, with selected highlights of English literature, numbered 3,500 items. It has grown through acquisitions and gifts to include some 35,000 printed items and 115,000 manuscripts, covering the entire range of English and American literature.
- Langston Hughes Festival Collection (City College of New York)
- The CCNY Archives and Collections Library is the repository for material related to the festival. The Langston Hughes Festival explores the literary legacy of the poet laureate of Harlem, James Langston Hughes (1901-1967).
- Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division (NYPL)
- The Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division collects, preserves and makes available for research purposes rare, unique and primary materials which document the history and culture of peoples of African descent throughout the world, with a concentration on the Americas and the Caribbean.
- The New School Libraries & Archives Digital Collections (The New School)
- The Digital Collections of the Libraries & Archives provide online access to an ever-growing pool of digitized and born-digital publications, text-based documents, images, transcripts, and audiovisual recordings and programs drawn from the Archives & Special Collections, as well as from Visual Resource Collections consisting of more than 50,000 art and design-related images derived from faculty slide collections and commercial databases.
- Poets House
- A Place for Poetry – Poets House is a national poetry library and literary center that invites poets and the public to step into the living tradition of poetry.
- Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (NYPL)
- Since 1970, the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) has preserved live theatrical productions and documented the creative contributions of distinguished artists and legendary figures of the theatre.
