The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)

From the founding of the University Library into the twentieth century, rare materials were housed within the main stacks.[5] Significant early acquisitions, now housed in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, include the Richard Aron collection on German pedagogy (20,000 items),[6] acquired in 1913; the H. A. Rattermann collection of German-American literature (7,000 items),[7] acquired in 1915; the James Collins collection of Irish literature (over 7.000 items),[8] acquired in 1917; the Julius Doerner collection on theology, history, and literature (50,000 items), acquired in 1918; and the Antonio Cavagna collection of Italian books and manuscripts (45,000 items),[9] acquired in 1921.[10]

Professor Harris F. Fletcher, a member of the English faculty from 1926 to 1962, advised the library on the purchase of books by and about John Milton, often assisting during his own visits to England. In 1937, the Library decided to designate a small space on the fourth floor ("The Seventeenth Century Room") to house Fletcher's collection of approximately 5,700 volumes.[11] In 1966, the Rare Book & Manuscript library acquired the large personal collection of Professor and Shakespeare scholar Thomas W. Baldwin, with strong holdings in Renaissance pedagogy, literature, drama, history, and politics in an attempt to collect books that Shakespeare and his contemporaries might have read in their lifetimes. As a result of these and other acquisitions, the library is a significant repository of English imprints from the 16th to 19th centuries[12] and incunabula, including numerous items from the New Haven firm of C. A. Stonehill.[13] The library also began collecting incunabula; by 1950, its collection of pre-1501 imprints numbered nearly 400.

The library developed some of its specialties following specific major acquisitions. An elephant folio of Audubon’s The Birds of America (1826–38) is the centerpiece of substantial ornithological holdings. The library acquired 82 cubic feet of H. G. Wells manuscripts in 1954 and has since added numerous related items and small collections to its Wells holdings. The RBML also holds a large collection of Marcel Proust correspondence, comprised in part of materials collected by professor-collector Philip Kolb; the current Proust collection includes over 1,100 holographic items, as well as additional resources for research on Proust and his contemporaries.[14]

Under the leadership of Robert B. Downs (1958–1974), the University Library began identifying rare titles throughout the general stacks and subject libraries, bringing them together in a new, larger space designated the Rare Book Room. Downs actively sought to enlarge the library's holdings in its areas of strength and to develop new areas of interest. During his tenure, the library acquired numerous major collections, including the Lloyd Francis Nickell collection of eighteenth-century English literature (2,000 volumes),[15] the Ewin Cannon Baskette collection on freedom of expression (10,000 items);[16] the Spanish Civil War collection;[17] the Marvin T. Herrick collection of Italian plays from 1500 to 1700 (500 items),[18] the Jacob Hollander collection of economic history (4,470 items);[19] the Franklin J. Meine collection of Mark Twain (2,100 items);[20] the Yamagiwa collection of Japanese illustrated books (1,800 items);[21] the Harwell collection of Confederate imprints and sheet music (2,500 items),[22] and a large group of Carl Sandburg papers.[23] By the end of Downs's career, the Rare Book Room had moved from its fourth-floor location to the library's west wing, where the RBML remains today.

In 2017, Lynne M. Thomas was named the Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Rare Book & Manuscript Professor of the library.[24]

• Official website
• Non Solus blog, a blog continuing the work of a publication of the same name about the collections of the University of Illinois Library published between 1974 and 1985