| Special Collections
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About Special CollectionsResources | Serving the University Community and the PublicAssociated Centers | Mailing Address and Contact Information In 1985, the LSU Libraries organized the Special Collections division to administer the rare books, manuscripts, and other special research collections already held by the libraries. The division's principal mission is to preserve these collections, add to them, and make them available for use. Special Collections offers resources for original research in many fields, ranging from the humanities and social sciences to the natural sciences, agriculture, aquaculture, the fine arts, and design. Hill Memorial Library houses Special Collections. Constructed in 1925 as the main library for the campus, it stands just west of Troy H. Middleton Library on the historic old quadrangle at the heart of the LSU campus. Hill provides a spacious reading room, a lecture hall, and exhibition galleries to showcase the Libraries' holdings. For a virtual tour of the building, click here. Renovations to Hill Memorial Library from 1983 to 1985 included installation of a security system, environmental controls, and fire detection and suppression systems to ensure the preservation of irreplaceable rare books and manuscripts. Special Collections comprises more than 200,000 volumes of published works, 10 million manuscript items, 200,000 historic photographs, 16,000 reels of newspaper microfilm, hundreds of oral histories, and other diverse materials for research. Individual collections include
Serving the University Community and the Public For Special Collections staff, providing service to the University community and the public is our first and most important goal. For information about using the collections, go to Where do I start? and Using the Collections. Special Collections curators welcome opportunities to give customized presentations to classes, organizations, and other groups, and encourage university faculty and graduate students to incorporate Special Collections' teaching resources into their instruction plans. Civic and social groups are also welcome. Please contact a curator to schedule a guided tours of exhibitions or introductions to the library's holdings. Special Collections staff provide reference service in person and by telephone. Public Services staff also answer mail, fax, and email queries, offering assistance with questions pertaining to Special Collections' holdings. Contact information is given below. Many staff members who assist researchers in the reading room spend most of their time acquiring, organizing, and preserving research materials. Staff organize and preserve collections of documents and photographs so that researchers can find useful items within them. They create cataloging records and other finding aids available through the LSU online catalog, in the reading room, and on the Internet to facilitate use of the collections. In collaboration with the Louisiana Digital Library, staff digitize materials to provide remote access. Although these activities take place “behind the scene,” they are an essential part of providing high-quality service to library patrons. Since 1948 LSU has committed significant resources to the preservation of newspapers published in Louisiana through a program of microfilming. In the 1980s, the program expanded to become The Louisiana Newspaper Project part of the United States Newspaper Program, creating comprehensive cataloging records for filmed papers. Filming and cataloging of some 100 newspapers is ongoing. These microfilms are available in Special Collections and via interlibrary loan. Special Collections can provide photocopies, photographs, digital images, microfilm, prints from microforms, and copies of audiotapes. Duplication decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. For more information, please request the separate brochure that explains duplication policies and procedures or consult it on the Special Collections web page at http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/dupl.html Founded in 1991, the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History collects and preserves unique and valuable information about Louisiana history that exists in people's memories. More than 1,300 tape-recorded interviews with men and women from across the state document topics such as Louisiana politics, the history of LSU, the civil rights movement, and World War II. Researchers access tapes and transcript in the Special Collections reading room. The Williams Center not only supports university teaching and research but also serves as a state-wide resource for information on using oral history to record local, family, and institutional history. The mission of the United States Civil War Center is to promote the study of the Civil War from the perspectives of all professions, occupations and academic disciplines. Projects include the Michael Shaara and Peter Seaborg Awards, the Civil War Book Review, and the Michael Lehman Williamson Collection of Civil War Books for Young People. Founded in 1993 the US Civil War Center became part of the Special Collections in 2000. Both centers are located in the Agnes Morris House on Raphael Semmes Drive on the LSU campus. Mailing Address and Contact Information: Special Collections
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