Ruth T. Watanabe served as the head of the Eastman School of Music’s Sibley Library for thirty-seven years. During her time there, Watanabe devoted herself to expanding Sibley’s collections, developing and hiring staff, creating a rare books department, a conservation laboratory, and a reading room. As the head of the largest music library in the United States, Ruth T. Watanabe was integral to Sibley Library’s growth and success and remains an important figure in University of Rochester history to this day.

As one of the most well-known African American poets, Lucille Clifton’s large collection of work spans decades and countless topic. When reading through her works, political undercurrents clearly run through the poems, discussing the issues of race and gender that Clifton herself so often dealt with as a black woman during the civil rights movement.

Archives are an excellent place to find ghosts.

For Women's History Month, RBSCP is featuring the collection of Mollie Moon, a glittering, tireless spirit in civil rights and social justice history. 

Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) is celebrating National Poetry Month in April by highlighting their collections on poetry and publishing houses, one of which is the papers of BOA Editions Limited. Founded in Rochester in 1976 by poet, editor, and translator Al Poulin, BOA is a non-profit publishing house that has published over 300 titles of poetry, poetry-in-translation, and short fiction.

See our fourth cohort of Zero-Cost Heroes (Est. March 2023)

Back in April, RBSCP's social media manager asked if anyone in the department knew any poems in the collections that they'd especially like to share for National Poetry Month.

I responded to the email so fast that if we'd been talking in person I might have jumped to my feet. Yes, I did know exactly the poem. It had been echoing in my head ever since I'd read it while processing gay community leader RJ Alcalá's materials. Actually, I had a picture of it on my phone. And yes, I would gladly write about it.

My Father, a historian, always told me that 90% of history work is brute-force research: going through letter after letter and diary after diary to find evidence or information. Though it may be arduous at times, this sort of work is essential to piecing together accurate histories. When I was assigned to look through the Porter Family Collection this semester, I did just this.

As part of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass, a year celebrated not just in Rochester but across the United States, and around the world, Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSCP) at the University of Rochester used this year as an opportunity to expand and explore our collections as they relate to Douglass, building upon the rare and unique materials that are expected in an archive.

Edward Gorey has been one of my favorite illustrators for a long, long time. So much so that I have a tattoo of one of his famous characters, Figbash, on my back and his artwork adorned my wedding invitations. Seeing that the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) here at Rush Rhees Library had a small but respectable collection of his books made me realize that coming here was pretty much fate. The bulk of our Gorey collection came in through a generous donation from Sylvia Davis in 1992.