University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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The items in the Digital Collections of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library contain materials which represent or depict sensitive topics or were written from perspectives using outdated or biased language. The Library condemns discrimination and hatred on any grounds. As a research library that supports the mission and values of this land grant institution, it is incumbent upon the University Library to preserve, describe, and provide access to materials to accurately document our past, support learning about it, and effect change in the present. In accordance with the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read statement, we do not censor our materials or prevent patrons from accessing them.

If you have questions regarding this statement or any content in the Library’s digital collections, please contact digitalcollections@lists.illinois.edu

American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at the University Library
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Showing 1–25 of 25 collections
  • Amos Kennedy Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., Collection in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign contains artists’ books, postcards, and posters. Kennedy is a letterpress printer, papermaker, book artist, and teacher who currently lives and works in York, Alabama. He was the first artist in residence at The Coleman Center for Arts and Culture, an organization founded in 1985 to further the arts in York. Through his strong graphics and bold typography, Kennedy addresses passionately issues of race, freedom, and equality, often incorporating proverbs and tales of the Kuba and Yoruba people of Africa, as well as the work of African-American poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar.
  • Carl Sandburg Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The more than 2,700 photographs in this collection are scanned from the Carl Sandburg Collection housed in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Spanning the years 1893-1987, these images are part of a collection that includes typescripts and galley proofs of many of Sandburg's works, his correspondence with literary and public figures, recordings and transcriptions of Sandburg's radio broadcasts, and a supporting book collection of approximately 5,000 volumes.
  • Cavagna Sangiuliani Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Antonio Cavagna Sangiuliani (1843-1913) was a public official, book collector, and recognized authority on the history of the Lombardy and Piedmont regions in northern Italy. His library contained tens of thousands of books on history, genealogy, biography, and law, including city statutes and organizational bylaws. The manuscripts in the collection especially reflect the study of local history and include charters, chronicles, investitures, leases, and other legal instruments relating to Italian cities, organizations, and families. All aspects of Italian history, from the Middle Ages to the first years of the twentieth century, are prominently represented in the Cavagna Sangiuliani Collection. Other topics which are heavily represented include art and architecture, church history and hagiography, engineering and fortification, military and religious orders, monasticism and religious life, Roman history and antiquities, and Italian academies and universities. Primarily in Italian, the collection also contains works in Latin, French, and German. Among the books in the collection are incunables, rare and early printed books, pamphlets, and ephemera. Many of the historical documents are unique and found in no other library worldwide. In addition, the Cavagna Sangiuliani Collection also contains several thousand maps, both printed and manuscript.
  • Charles E. Mudie Papers, 1816-1897
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Charles E. Mudie Digital Collection is comprised of correspondence, visual materials, and documents. This gathering of materials shed light on the management of Mudie’s Select Library, an innovative library that pioneered the concept of a circulating system operated by membership, as well as Mudie’s wide network of subscribers. The correspondence between Mudie, his family, and prominent 19th century literary English figures provides an ample view of the literary and publishing milieu during the Victorian era.
  • Collection of Marcel Proust papers, 1870-1950
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Papers of the French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922) provide a look at the man and his times. Proust had a large and varied number of correspondents, and his letters include an important source of information about Parisian life and French culture at the turn of the century.
  • Collins Collection of Irish Political Cartoons
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    This is an online collection of political cartoons from the University of Illinois Library Collins collection of books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps and cartoons; it was purchased by the Library in 1917. The collection consists of cartoons drawn primarily from the Weekly Freeman and National Press and United Ireland newspapers. The cartoons address the subject of Irish politics of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and, in particular, Ireland's relationship with England. Collection size: approximately 75 cartoons.
  • Conde de Montemar Letters
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Conde de Montemar Letters are a unique collection of correspondence that belonged to the Spanish/Peruvian noble family Carrillo de Albornoz y Bravo de Lagunas, counts of Montemar. The Latin American and Caribbean Studies section of the International and Area Studies Library at Illinois is proud to offer unfettered access to this unique collection of eighteenth century letters, which provide a close and unfiltered look into the life and politics of the Limeño elite during the late colonial Spanish Empire. The letters’ topics include the intimate communication of familial matters, vice-royal politics, the relationship with the Church, urban life, and economic activity. In a time of integral changes and reforms at the core of Spanish imperial rule, the collection represents a useful source for scholars focusing on Andean political cultures, Spanish Imperial politics, Peruvian political and economic history, Peruvian-Spanish family history, gender, race, social hierarchy, religion, and other humanistic fields such as historical sociology, historical anthropology, and historical economy. The Conde de Montemar project is a product of multiple units at the University of Illinois Library. Many people have been involved in this project in one way or another. For more information on the work done to make these letters accessible, as well as the individuals and institutions who contributed to this work, please visit the official project website at: https://quest.library.illinois.edu/Conde-de-Montemar-Letters/
  • Digital Emblematica
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Digital Emblematica collection highlights a fraction of the internationally renowned emblem book collection owned by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Published in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and England, each digitized book can contain up to 1,500 emblems to peruse. These 17th and 18th Century creations typically link together three constitutive elements — a motto, an illustration or "pictura" in the form of a woodcut or engraving, and an explanatory poem or "subscriptio."
  • Digital Rare Book Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The RBML Digital Rare Books Collection offers a comprehensive selection of titles from our distinctive collections. The collection features exemplars from our collections of medieval manuscripts, incunabula, renaissance, and other early imprints, as well as a great variety of subjects representing a good balance between the sciences and the humanities. These titles also showcase a wide variety of printing and binding technologies that are idiosyncratic to the history of the book.
  • Gwendolyn Brooks Digital Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The literary archives of Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) are part of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Ms. Brooks was an Illinois Poet Laureate as well as the first Black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize. The collection is comprehensive and spans more than half a century. It includes Ms. Brooks’ youthful poetry and prose, scrapbooks of pieces she published as a young woman, and extensive correspondence with a significant roster of other writers. The correspondence section alone has more than 100 boxes filled with letters, envelopes, and other items that were sent to and by Ms. Brooks. Also in the collection are manuscript drafts and proofs, especially material from after she left mainstream commercial publishing to produce her works with small presses and Black-owned imprints. Providing more insight into the daily life of Ms. Brooks, the collection also contains a profusion of notes documenting her observations on current events and daily life, her personal library of books, and a plethora of scrapbooks and other photographs – many of them detailed with extensive notes about their subjects. Ms. Brooks’ papers preserve and illuminate her creative process, sometimes across decades. Ms. Brooks’ meticulous preservation of and commentary on all aspects of her life is, at heart, a deeply archival pursuit, beckoning us to uncover networks of support and influence, make connections among her many interests and activities, and, ultimately, come to a deeper understanding of the person and the poet. A portion of this digital collection was conserved and digitized through a Save America’s Treasures grant. (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/historicpreservationfund/save-americas-treasures-grants.htm) “The Save America’s Treasures grant program was established in 1998 to celebrate America's premier cultural resources in the new millennium. After more than 20 years, this grant program has awarded more than 1,300 grants totaling more than $300 million to projects across the United States. Funded projects, selected from 4,000-plus applications requesting $1.5 billion, represent nationally significant historic properties and collections that convey our nation's rich heritage to future generations. The National Park Service administers Save America's Treasures grants in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.” Collection photograph by Roy Lewis.
  • Historical Maps Online
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Historical Maps Online collection contains images of maps charting the last 400 years of historical development in Illinois and the Northwest Territory, including historic topographic maps of Illinois. The collection also contains early large-scale topographic quadrangles published by the United States Geological Survey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Collection size: approximately 420 maps.
  • Hōrai no makimono scroll
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Digital surrogate for Hōrai no makimono., 1 scroll in case : illustrations, color
  • John Starr Stewart Ex Libris Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The John Starr Stewart Ex Libris Collection comprises some 1500 plates, each mounted on an individual card. Each card has a specially designed printed form mounted on the verso upon which Mr. Stewart inserted notes about the owner, designer, or subject of the plate. Besides bookplates, the collection contains book stamps and spine labels, especially from institutional libraries. The collection was made between 1903 and 1906 and is rich in contemporary bookplates, many in the art nouveau style, although older plates are also included. While mid-Western and other American plates predominate, a substantial number of English and continental plates are present.
  • Maps of Africa to 1900
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
  • Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design is a valuable source of documentation on the history of theatre and is housed in The Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It is a rare collection of original materials on the theatre comprising over 5000 items from more than 150 productions in England and the United States. These materials include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric. The Motley Group consisted of Margaret Harris, her sister Sophia Harris, and Elizabeth Montgomery, who designed sets and costumes from 1932 to 1976 for plays by Shakespeare and modern classics, opera, ballet, and motion pictures. Their designs were used in productions in the West End of London, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the English National Opera, and in the United States on Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Their first work was for a 1932 production of Romeo and Juliet directed by John Gielgud. The Motley Group was highly innovative in designing sets and costumes that suggested the mood, architecture, and styles of the original setting of the play, but was not the rote duplication that had been done so many times before. They wanted to create an atmosphere that was artistic, in addition to having an air of authenticity. Motley set the standard for how Shakespearean productions should be staged. The Group's work diversified in 1940 when Margaret Harris and Elizabeth Montgomery went to New York to design a production for Laurence Olivier and had to remain there for the duration of World War II, while Sophia Harris worked in London. After the war Margaret Harris returned to London and Elizabeth Montgomery stayed in New York, where she designed the costumes for numerous Broadway musicals, as well as plays, ballets, and operas. After the members of the Motley Group had retired, Michael Mullin, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, met Margaret Harris and expressed an interest in the University acquiring the over 40 years worth of designs that the group had accumulated. After long negotiations with Sotheby's, who had been contracted to auction the items, the University of Illinois finally reached an agreement in April, 1981, to purchase the entire collection. This ensured that a valuable resource on the history of 20th century theatre would be preserved intact for the benefit of future generations. For more information, visit the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
  • Paléographie des classiques latins
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Émile Chatelain's Paléographie des classiques latins was produced in 14 fascicles between 1884 and 1900, and consists of more than 200 facsimiles of leaves from medieval manuscripts, with explanatory text. The leaves range in date from the fourth to the fifteenth century, and together demonstrate the range of scripts in which the main Latin classics were transmitted from antiquity to the modern world. More than thirty classical authors are represented in the collection, which has been an important paleographical reference work for more than a century. Collection size: approximately 305 items.
  • Portraits of Actors
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Portraits of Actors, 1720-1920, includes almost 3,500 pictures of actors — studio portraits and actors posing in costume for a particular role or performing a scene from a play. Dramatists, theatrical managers, singers and musicians are also included, but the majority are British and American actors who worked between about 1770 and 1893. Among the hundreds of actors included are: Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, John Philip Kemble, Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest, William Henry West Betty, Charles Mathews, Dorothy Jordan, Frances Abington, and Ada Rehan. The images were digitized from etchings, engravings, lithographs, mezzotints, aquatints, wood engravings, photographs, and photomechanically-reproduced prints, all from the University of Illinois Theatrical Print Collection.
  • The Printer's Scrapbook
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    This collection consists of two scrapbooks of early Illinois imprints dating from the 1840s and 1850s. These scrapbooks were compiled as samples of job printing work done at the Alton Telegraph Office in southern Illinois. Materials include government and financial documents, event invitations and programs, product labels and advertising, and other printed ephemera. Approximately a hundred of the items were cited in Cecil K. Byrd's A bibliography of Illinois imprints, 1814-58 (University of Chicago Press, 1966), but these citations represent only a small fraction of the items preserved in the scrapbooks.
  • Project Unica
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Project Unica is an initiative of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to produce high quality digital facsimiles of printed books that exist in only one copy. The concept of a "unicum" is difficult for the average library user to understand, since printed books, by their very nature, exist in more than one copy—that's the genius of Gutenberg's invention, after all. But fate and circumstance has sometime led to the destruction of every copy, save one, of a printed book. And the University of Illinois has quite a number of absolutely unique printed books. The aim of Project Unica is to digitize these supremely rare items and to provide a simple and efficient way of getting this valuable and unique information to scholars when and where they need it. The records of the books and the digital facsimiles are also available from institution's online catalog, Illinois Harvest, and OCLC.
  • RBML Historical Games
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The RBML Historical Games collection provides an eclectic look into board and card games from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Primarily targeted towards high- and middle-class families, they were used as conversation pieces, friendly fun, and to instigate socially acceptable interactions between young men and women. However, these games were about much more than play. They instilled ideas about religion, morality, history, language and frequently underlined the proper ways to navigate and contribute to society. This collection features many games of chance, a nod to the structured but random happenings of life.
  • RBML Manuscript Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Rare Book & Manuscript Library Digital Manuscripts Collection features exemplars of illuminated manuscripts and handwritten texts showcasing a variety of languages and cultures. These manuscripts offer a look into the development of binding and textual technologies that are idiosyncratic to the history of the book.
  • RBML Rare Periodicals Digital Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The RBML Rare Periodicals features a comprehensive selection of serialized publications from our distinctive collections. Newspapers, gazettes, newsletters, legal publications are included in this collection, as well as a great variety of topics.
  • Translation with emendations of Opus galli anonymi by Sir Isaac Newton
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Newton's manuscript translation of an anonymous French work detailing the creation of the philosopher's stone. His inscription on front wrapper below title 'Opus galli anonymi' indicates that the procedures described in the text are similar to that of the French alchemical physician Pierre-Jean Fabre in his work L'abregé des secrets chymiques. No comparable source text is known, however. Newton's heavy emendations and corrections suggest that he was not merely transcribing, but extemporaneously creating an original translation from the French text, possibly with his own interpretations and elucidations.
  • William Allingham papers, 1846-1920
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    William Allingham (1824-1889) was an Irish poet, the editor of Fraser’s Magazine beginning in 1874, and one of the pioneering figures of publishing during the 19th century. His first volume of poetry, “Poems” which included his most well-known poem “The Fairies,” was published in 1850, followed by many more publications during his lifetime. The William Allingham Digital Collection gathers correspondence, visual materials, and documents. Both Allingham and his wife Helen were associated with the Pre-Raphaelites movement in England, with prominent artists and literary figures of the time such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Lord Alfred Tennyson, and John Everett Millais and many more.
  • Women Printers Digital Collection
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Women Printers Project illustrates women’s contributions to print culture from 1478-1715. It currently surveys the materials printed by five printers: the collective of the Ripoli Nuns in Florence, Charlotte Guillard in Paris, and Tace Sowle, Anne Maxwell, and Elinor James in London. The fifty volumes that make up our examples of their work run the gamut of early modern production practices in genre, length, quality, and size. This digital collection provides a valuable snapshot into the world of early print with women at the lens.