Welcome to the Special Collections Library at Vanderbilt University! We are located at 1101 19th Avenue South, next to the Wesley Parking Garage.
Our mission is to deliver a legacy of cultural heritage by acquiring, preserving, and making perpetually accessible, paper-based, analog, and digital collections of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, artifacts, audio-visual, Vanderbilt institutional archives, and any other information resources or data sets we deem under the aegis of special collections.
We support the Library Mission and Strategy through the following (in no particular order):
- Collaborating with donors and the university to acquire, understand and describe the context, material, and intellectual content of their collections regardless of format;
- Arranging and describing the collections to enable diverse and inclusive paths to discovery, access, and understanding of the material by local, regional, and international scholars, and researchers;
- Preserving and stewarding the collections in our care through proper material and digital preservation;
- Supplying instruction, fellowship, and reference services to enrich understanding and build research competencies in the Vanderbilt community;
- Giving digital and physical access to collections to as wide an audience as possible, as sensitivity and rights constraints permit, both online and on-site at Vanderbilt.
Special Collections supplies primary resource material to a variety of local, national, and international scholars each year. It houses one of the finest twentieth-century Southern literature collections in the United States and is the center for the study of the Fugitive and Agrarian literary groups. Other popular subjects include Southern history and culture, women’s issues, civil rights, religious studies, performing arts, and Latin American history, especially Colombian and Afro-Colombian history. For more information about all our primary source collections, please see our Collections Overview and our Primary Source Search.
Research Visits
The Special Collections reading room is open by appointment. To book an appointment, please contact us by email at specialcollections@vanderbilt.edu. Please see our Visit Us page for more information.
Using Our Materials
Special Collections welcomes researchers to use our rich collections. All of our materials may only be viewed in the reading room of Special Collections at 1101 19th Avenue South. We ask that you request materials you may be interested in, using our resource management system, at least 2-3 days in advance, as many of our materials are stored in an off-site repository. If you have not visited us before you will also need to register for an account on the resource management system.
Publication Policy for Library Materials
In order to reduce barriers to the dissemination of research conducted in its collections, the Special Collections and University Archives will ordinarily not set conditions on publication of materials from its collections in connection with scholarship.In most cases, Special Collections and University Archives owns only the physical materials and therefore does not assume any responsibility for literary property, copyright, or any other legal issues involved in the publication and reproduction of items in its collections. It is the responsibility of the user to secure permission from the appropriate copyright holder or to rely on fair use rights. Any copyright infringement which may occur through the use of our material is the responsibility of the patron. Please contact the Director of Special Collections and University Archives for additional questions about publishing or reproducing materials in our collections.
Finding Materials
There are a variety of ways to discover Special Collections material. Rare books may be found and requested by using the library’s online Catalog. All primary source materials, including available University Archives collections, are discoverable through our Primary Source Search. Finally, Vanderbilt Libraries also has an online database of Digital Collections that may be searched for materials. For information on how to request items from our collections for use onsite, please refer to the Request Materials page. For all other requests, feel free to contact us.