Special Collections Services and Facilities
Reading Rooms/Seminar Rooms: Special Collections materials do not circulate outside the Department because they are unique and/or fragile. Both Special Collections and Archives maintain a reading room for the use of their collections. Special Collections maintains the Isador Mendle Room for classes and for others requiring group access to materials housed in the Department. Those needing group access to materials housed in University Archives may use either the Archives Reading Room or the group study facilities at the West Campus Library. Please also note that materials cannot be retrieved for readers after 4:30 p.m., and materials are collected at 4:45 p.m.
Photocopying: All photocopying of Special Collections materials must be performed by Special Collections staff. Reproductions may be made if the original will not be damaged in the process. Copyright restrictions are observed. The fee for photocopying is 10 cents per page.
Reference Services: Special Collections staff are available to assist patrons in using the library catalog, the library web site, the reference collections, the card catalog that is maintained by Special Collections, and other specialized reference tools. In addition, Special Collections staff are available to assist patrons in locating primary source materials in collections outside of Washington University.
Reference Collections: Special Collections maintains its own reference and bibliography collection, available for browsing in the Special Collections Reading Room (Olin Level 1). Subjects covered include the history of the book as a cultural object, publishing history, printed catalogs of rare book collections formed by others and guides to the buying and selling of books. Although the staff are not permitted to conduct appraisals nor to search for price information, they can instruct a visitor on how to go about such a search. University Archives also maintains its own reference collection, housed in the Archives Reading Room, focusing on the history of Washington University and history of St. Louis in the twentieth century.
Classes: Special Collections strongly encourages the use of rare books and manuscripts in support of teaching. Arrangements can be made for classes to be held in Special Collections or Archives. Staff are available to make presentations about the holdings or to work with faculty interested in including rare books, manuscripts, and archives in the curriculum.
Exhibitions: In both Special Collections and Archives, library staff present a number of exhibitions per year, to highlight recent gifts and to draw attention to various strengths in the collections.
Interlibrary Loan: Materials from other institutions' Special Collections departments are sometimes available through the Interlibrary Loan Unit in Olin Library (Level 1) for exclusive use in a supervised, environmentally controlled reading room.
Publications: See the publications page for catalogs of recent
Special Collections exhibits. Many of these catalogs are
available free of charge; contact the Department to obtain any of
the publications listed.