This post is by Laura Berrios Figueroa, (GSAS ’28), who in summer 2026 processed the Dolores Prida papers as part of the Primary Source Graduate Internship program. If, according to Shakespeare, “All the world’s a stage, [a]nd all the men and women [are] merely players,” Dolores Prida definitely knew how to play. In the theater […]
Category: manuscripts
On Outdated and Harmful Language in Library of Congress Subject Headings
Note: We always welcome corrections and other feedback on our finding aids. Please contact us at rbml@library.columbia.edu if you notice anything in a finding aid, including a subject heading, that needs attention. A colleague recently asked an excellent question: why do the subject headings in our finding aids frequently use outdated terminology? It seems […]
Two ancient papyrus fragments and their very modern reunion
For us at RBML, this has been a year of facilitating many virtual encounters with rare materials, from remote teaching and consultations to publication of digital and digitized materials on Columbia’s Digital Library Collections (DLC). And to that we may now add virtual reunions of rare materials! For nearly a century, RBML’s Papyrus Collection has […]
Microfilm?! Digitizing an old medium yields new discoveries
For many years, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library has been working with the National Library of Israel’s Manuscripts Department to include our digitized Hebrew manuscripts in KTIV, the International Database of Hebrew Manuscripts. In the 1970s, Columbia Libraries created microfilms for about 700 of the Judaica manuscripts in its collection as part of a […]
News from the RBML’s Archivists and Collections Management Specialists | November 2020
New Collections Geraldine De Courcy papers, 1958-1985 “This is a small collection of research work consisting of correspondence and copies of materials collected by Geraldine De Courcy for her published biography of Paganini and for her unpublished biography of Joachim. The papers also give details of the problems that followed her death, given that her […]