The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections has a wide variety of online reference tools that describe its holdings in varying degrees of detail. While these tools take different forms, ranging from descriptive guides to collection- and item-level bibliographic records, their purpose is to describe and, in some cases, digitally reproduce the material in our collections.

Links to the Department's major reference tools appear on this page, but they and many others have also been broadly organized according to the type of material they describe, namely, Rare Books; Manuscripts and Archives; Graphic Arts; and Western Americana. All are designed to be self-explanetory, but researchers should not hesitate to contact reference staff with questions.

Tips on using these tools effectively can be found in the Department's Research Tutorial. Researchers should also bear in mind that not all of our holdings are described in an online form and that printed catalogs or inventories may represent the only source of information that is available.