Hesburgh Library
Rare Books and Special Collections
102 Hesburgh Library
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(574) 631-1575
rbohlman@nd.edu
Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) and University Archives are units of the Hesburgh Libraries where collections of unique and rare materials at the University of Notre Dame are held.
Rare Books and Special Collections' holdings
Archives' holdings include
Official records of the University of Notre Dame that document the administrative and academic responsibilities of the University and the experiences of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and benefactors.
A Finding Aid is a type of guide that provides information about items in a collection of records. It gives information such as the acquisition and processing of the materials, their provenance, the size of the collection and types of materials in it, the organization and arrangement of the materials, and an inventory of the series and folders of the collection.
Contact the curator (see below) for the type of material you want to see preferably 1-2 days in advance.
For manuscripts, please have the name of the collection and identifying number. This number generally begins with MS followed by another letter designating the geographical area, then a slash, then 2 or 3 letters generally representing the time period, followed by a number. For example: MSN/CW 1009 is Manuscript North American / Civil War 1009. “INQ” is used for the Inquisition collection.
For books, look the title up in the library catalog. Write down the entire call number (in bold below). The words “Vault,” “XSmall,” “Small,” “Medium,” “(MR) Medium,” “Large,” “XLarge,” and “Oversize” are very important to include. This identifies the location of the item in our storage facilities. For example:
Contact Archives ahead of time to use materials. Many collections are stored off-site and may take 1-2 days to retrieve.