Archives and Special Collections collects, preserves, organizes, and makes available rare and unique materials documenting the history of the health sciences in general and at the Columbia University Medical Center in particular. The department's holdings include books, journals, manuscripts, photographs, prints, sound recordings, moving images and artifacts which because of their historical value, rarity, or fragility must be kept separate from the library's general circulating collection.

The department also serves as the archives for the schools of the Columbia University Medical Center:

• College of Physicians & Surgeons (1767)
• School of Nursing (1892)
• College of Dental Medicine (formerly the School of Dental & Oral Surgery) (1916)
• Mailman School of Public Health (1922)

Archives and Special Collections also holds some records of the defunct College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, founded in 1829 as the College of Pharmacy, though it was never part of the Medical Center.

The department houses a 15,000 volume rare book library in the history of the health sciences dating from the 15th into the 20th century and holds all library material printed before 1876. Special Collections include the Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection, the Freud Library, the Hyman Collection in the History of Anesthesiology, and the Webster Library of Plastic Surgery. Archives and Special Collections also collects the personal papers of physicians, nurses, biomedical scientists and others with a connection to Columbia University or its teaching affiliate, the Columbia University Medical Center of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital (originally Presbyterian Hospital). The department's image collection numbers in the thousands of items and mostly relates to Medical Center individuals, buildings, and events.

A full listing of our collections is available from our home page.

Archives & Special Collections material does not circulate; all items must be used in the department's Geraldine McAlpin Webster Reading Room.