Rare Books and Special Collections is a part of ROAAr at the

McGill University Library McGill University Library is the library system of McGill University in Montreal, Montréal, Quebec, Québec, Canada. It comprises #Branch libraries, 13 branch libraries, located on the downtown Montreal and Macdonald Campus, Macdonald campuses, ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

(

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

), whose mandate is to "support the teaching, learning and research needs of McGill students and faculty from all disciplines, and the wider scholarly community."

Description

Located at the fourth floor of the McLennan Library Building, the unit has a collection core of rare books on the following subjects :

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

Canadiana Canadiana is a term used to describe things (e.g., books, historical documents, works of art, music and artifacts), ideas, or activities that concern or are distinctive of Canada, its peoples, and/or its culture, especially works of literature ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

. The library seeks to collect books on

, philosophy and

18th-century literature Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the years 1700–1799. European literature in the 18th century European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, essays, and novels) pro ...

. The Special Collections are focused on several themes, for example :

children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (food), course (appetize ...

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in anci ...

s. Henceforth, these collections contain other material than books, and, in addition to puppets and other artefacts, also house prints, original drawings by artists such as

Palmer Cox Palmer Cox (April 28, 1840 – July 24, 1924) was a Canadian illustrator and author, best known for '' The Brownies'', his series of humorous verse books and comic strips about the mischievous but kindhearted fairy-like sprites. The cartoons we ...

Archival collection

Rare Books and Special Collections also contains an important archival collection, with more than 100

fonds In archival science, a fonds (plural also ''fonds'') is a group of documents that share the same origin and have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization. An example of a fonds could be ...

on various subjects such as the fur trade in Canada,

Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...

and Nipissing communities in Oka at the end of the 19th century, the creation of the Red River Settlement by the

Earl of Selkirk Earl of Selkirk is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, used since 1646. It has rules of inheritance subject to unusual and unique provisions. History The title was created on 14 August 1646 for William Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton, Lord W ...

Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; ; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, writing on Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote wo ...

's candidature at the deputation of Meaux, France in 1869.

References

{{authority control Academic libraries in Canada Libraries in Montreal McGill University