Rare and Distinctive Collections

The School of Medicine began humbly in 1883, Boulder, with two students and two professors. Today, the medical school now is part of a bioscience center that also includes schools of dental medicine, pharmacy, public health and nursing housed at the

Archives are not just a bunch of old paper. Though that is a majority of what we currently work with, we also preserve and provide access to materials that are created digitally. The Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi papers, for example, contain not

This book of images from the Trinity Tests, collected and donated by CU Professor Albert Bartlett, is full of declassified images that were eventually gifted to Prof. Bartlett in gratitude for being one of the photo printers. Each printer got to

Professor Mary Rippon was the first female professor at CU and is believed to be the first female faculty at a state university. She came to CU in 1878 to teach English grammar, French and German languages, and give instruction in mathematics.

This image is No. 16 of 20 in a bound book of photographs from the two-million-ton-a-year coal mining facility in Axial, CO owned by the Axial Basin Development Company. We do not know the date of the photographs or the book, but it is suspected to

In 1937, the state legislature passed the first academic building mill levy since 1917. President Norlin chose a new library building as the first item on the list. In 1938, Ralph Ellsworth began planning his first library building with notable

Originally one room in Old Main, the 1877 Buckingham Library at CU was the start of our information services. Pictured here is the freshly finished interior of the 1904 library building that we now know as the University of Colorado Theater. This

In 2018 the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries will celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Archives. Join us over the next 100 days as we share 100 stories from the Archives!In 1903, Dr. F.L. Paxson, of the University of Colorado History