Research

The University of Cincinnati and surrounding area are rich in materials for historical research.  Not only will students have access to the large university library collection, but also can gain access to several local archive collections.   

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outside the front entrance of langsam library building

Langsam Library

The University of Cincinnati Libraries currently hold about 4.4 million volumes, making it the thirty-sixth largest academic library in the United States, and it subscribes to about 50,000 scholarly journals.  Langsam Library the main research library on campus, is especially strong in European history for which there is a special endowment, in twentieth century American history, urban history and in women’s studies.  Finally, Langsam Library’s collection of online databases of both secondary and primary materials is one of the largest in the country and is expanding rapidly.

Ink print on older paper of people standing around an athletic event

A Cincinnati Turner athletic festival held on the banks of the Ohio River, 1889. German American Collection, ARB UC Libraries

UC’s Archives and Rare Books (ARB) Department, located in Blegan Library, contains several distinct and valuable collections.  Rare books focus especially on North American Indians, travel and exploration, and 18th century British literature.  The urban collection documents the growth and development of Cincinnati (it is the depository for all official city records) in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And, finally, the German Americana Collection, one of the largest in the nation, includes books, pamphlets, journals, newspapers and manuscripts pertaining to German immigrants in America, particularly in the Ohio Valley. 

Two open books

Facsimiles of medieval manuscripts in Burnam Classics Library

For scholars interested in medieval history, the Burnam Classics Library (the world’s largest with about 300,000 volumes and located in Blegan Library) collects anything printed in Latin which includes virtually all medieval texts published, edited or reprinted from the 17th century to the present. 

Anatomical drawing of human figure from back

Page from Paolo Mascagni’s Anatomiae Universai Icones (1823-1832) in the Winkler Center Collections

Finally, the collections of the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions (located in the Harrison Health Sciences Library) will prove especially useful to scholars of the history of health and medicine.  Included are 35,000 volumes on the history of medicine dating from 1500 to the present; a large manuscript collection; oral histories; 5,000 photographs; and 2,000 historic medical artifacts and instruments.  

In addition, UC is a member of the OhioLink system of research libraries that allows faculty and students to search a central computer catalog of 46 million books, 24 million electronic journal articles, and 100 electronic journal databases--and to order from your computer screen any item for delivery within two working days to the Langsam Library front desk. 

Old newspaper print

Newspaper, from CRL collections

UC is also a founding member of the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago, which has a collection of 5 million volumes (many now digital) not available at any library in the United States except the CRL, plus tens of thousands of newspaper titles.  Although it has substantial collections of North American and European materials, in recent years it has focused mainly on collecting rare materials from South America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. 

Outside the front entrance of klau library

Klau Library

The Klau Library at Hebrew Union College, two blocks from the UC campus, has a vast collection on Jewish history and culture which includes: 530,000 books, 1,200 current periodical subscriptions, 2,500 manuscript codices and many thousands of manuscript pages, 19,000 microfiche & 19,000 reels of microfilm, 100,000 digital images from manuscripts and early printed books, 3,300 sound recordings.  In addition, the Klau Library’s Rare Book Room has 14,000 volumes plus posters, maps and manuscripts.  

Next door, the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives preserves about 15 million documents recording Jewish history in the Western Hemisphere, including the archives of the Jewish Reform Movement in America.  

For scholars interested in pursuing the history of Catholicism, extensive research resources are available at The Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary on the east side of Cincinnati.   Collecting since 1833, the Eugene H. Maly Library contains about 120,000 volumes devoted to every aspect of the Catholic faith, culture and history.  In addition to the reference and circulation collections, Maly Library includes a Special Collection of over 11,000 books that concentrates on church history and liturgical books. This collection includes 35 manuscripts and 22 incunabula, dating to as early as the 12th century.  

Old books on a shelf

“Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia” from the mid-1800s

Students interested in the history of Catholicism may also want to drive to Columbus, two hours north of Cincinnati, to use the collections at the Pontifical College Josephinum.  The 120,000 volume library holds many unique and rare resources, including Catholic newspapers, manuscripts dating from the 1800s, a well-preserved Complete Works of Martin Luther from 1555, highly detailed and colorful Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and Vatican ephemera.

view looking down from third floor in library

Cincinnati Public Library

Other libraries in the local area will prove equally useful to scholars doing historical research.  Collecting since 1853, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, located downtown about two miles from UC’s Clifton campus, is the second largest public library in the United States.  It holds 11.7 million volumes, 4 million microfiche, and 150,000 reels of microfilm. The library’s collections are especially rich in nineteenth-century books and periodicals from both America and Europe, and also has extensive manuscript holdings pertaining to Cincinnati and the Old Northwest. 

Frescoes and ceiling in the Cincinnati Museum Center

Cincinnati Museum Center

Also downtown, the Cincinnati History Library and Archives at the Cincinnati Museum Center, collecting since 1831, has accumulated 90,000 books and 20,000 linear feet of manuscripts covering the history of the entire Ohio Valley. 

Print of alligator fighting a snake

Print by Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) in the Lloyd Library Collection

The Lloyd Library and Museum, also located downtown, is a private collection open to the public that has about 60,000 books and 4,000 serial titles, mainly on the history of science, medicine, and pharmacy.  Its collection includes thousands of rare books and prints from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. 

Other Archive Collections Near Cincinnati

Black and white photo of performers with fiddles

Virgil Anderson String Band, photograph. Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College

In addition, there are dozens of other specialized research libraries and archives within a two-hour drive of Cincinnati.

For example, scholars interested in the Appalachia will want to take a day trip to Berea College’s Archives, Manuscripts and Artifacts Collections (located in Hutchins Library on the Berea College campus in the town of Berea, Kentucky, south of Cincinnati).  The Weatherford-Hammond Mountain Collection, started in 1914, includes over 21,000 volumes of published material on all aspects of the region’s history and culture.  And the Southern Appalachian Archives includes organizational records, personal papers, oral histories, photographs, and non-commercial audio and video recordings that document regional history and culture especially in the areas of activism, education, folklore, traditional music, and religious expression in more than one hundred sixty separate collections.

Print of people gathered outside of building

Quaker Meeting in Richmond, Indiana, 1844

Historians interested in the history of Quakers will want to visit Earlham College about an hour drive north of Cincinnati.  There the Arthur and Kathleen Postle Archives and Friends Collection has one of the four or five largest Quaker Collections in the world, with more than 13,000 books and nearly as many pamphlets, some going back to the 17th Century when the Society of Friends was founded. These works are supplemented with an extensive collection of Quaker genealogical materials. Personal diaries, letters, and detailed records of monthly and yearly meetings reveal the lives of thousands of Quaker men and women.

Black and white drawing of man without shirt

Russian Erotic Art, Art and Artifacts Collection, Kinsey Institute Library

Also within a two hour drive from the UC campus, the Kinsey Institute Library in Bloomington, Indiana, specializes in sex, sexuality and gender.  It houses over 30,000 books, 80,000 photographs, 8,000 film titles, and 4,000 video titles.  In addition, it has a large manuscript collection, plus an art and artifact collection of 7,000 items.  
Other special collections close to Cincinnati and useful to historians include the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, the Indiana Historical Society in Bloomington, and the Filson Historical Society in Louisville.