About Our Collections 

The University Libraries have over 5 million books; over 50,000 journal and newspaper subscriptions; 16 million manuscripts and archival documents; an extensive collection of microforms; a large and diverse teaching image collection; an audio collection of 70,000 CDs and LPs; and a sizable video collection spanning genres and nationalities, housed in 15 libraries or available online.  Virgo, the Library's catalog is the best place to search for books and journals.

 Alderman Library serves advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to reference services and general collections in those areas,  Government Information Resources (Virginia, US, and international government publications) and the Scholars' Lab are located in Alderman, as are the University Library administration and several library departments. Brown Science & Engineering Library serves the Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, School of Engineering, and Statistics departments. Clemons Library provides abundant study space and 24-hour access, and is heavily used for its core collection of basic, high-use materials, its extensive audiovisual collection, and its digital media technologies. The Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library supports the curriculum and research in Architecture, History of Architecture, Landscape Architeture, Urban Planning, Studio Art, Art History, Theater History and the technical aspects of theater production. The Music Library serves the McIntire Department of Music with a collection of over 135,000 books, scores, and sound recordings, and extensive online collections and robust computing capabilities. The  Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library contains over 13 million manuscripts, 325,000 rare books, 3 million items in the University Archives, photographs, maps, and other rare materials. The collections support teaching and research in American history and literature, African American history and literature, architecture, book arts, and other areas of the humanities and social sciences.

Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature  contains, insofar as has been possible to assemble them, all fiction, poetry, drama and essays published by an American in book form from 1775 up to and including 1875.  For subsequent years, up to 1950, it contains a very nearly complete collection of the works of every major American writer and those who occupy a place in America's literary history. Well over a thousand  authors are represented. With the first editions are important later editions, many translations and periodical appearances, and a vast amount of biographical and critical material.  Manuscripts and letters have been brought together in such quantity that few similar collections can approach it in size and scholarly importance. Representative examples of the collection's depth include several hundred letters by Washington Irving, along with manuscripts of his The Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall, and others; manuscripts and letters by James FenimoreCooper; over 300 letters by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and sixty-four manuscripts of his poetry and prose; the manuscript of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, along with a large group of his letters; over fourteen hundred letters and documents of Mark Twain, including the manuscripts of The Celebrated Frog of Calaveras County and portions of The Gilded Age. Henry James is represented by a nearly complete library of English and American first editions, supplemented by four manuscripts, over 650 letters, and some early corrected typescripts. The Stephen Crane collection is among the largest group of his notebooks, scrapbooks and letters ever brought together, and includes the manuscript of The Red Badge of Courage. The collection includes the largest and most complete collection of Robert Frost's works ever assembled, including early notebooks and manuscripts, letters, family papers, first editions, association copies, books about, and magazine appearances. Ernest Hemingway is represented by the manuscript of The Green Hills of Africa, the typescript of The Sun Also Rises, and a heavily annotated (by Hemingway) typescript of the filmscript of The Sun Also Rises. The Barrett Library also includes the manuscripts of three modern notable books, Noon Wine, by Katherine Anne Porter, The Time of Your Life, by William Saroyan, and The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck.

Digital Collections Repository   The Library's Digital Repository is a growing searchable collection of over 10,000 electronic texts.

East Asian Collections    The Library has a growing collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean materials housed in Alderman, Fine Arts and other branch libraries.  Areas of particular strength include Buddhism, Buddhist art, history and literature.  In addition, the Library subscribes to several Chinese full text databases such as China Academic Journals, Siku Quanshu,China Data Online, etc.

Government Information  The Library is a Federal depository for U.S. government publications and serves as a Regional Library for the Commonwealth. It has amassed a sizable collection of over 1.3 million paper documents, 1.5 million microforms, and over 140,000 maps. The print historical collections extend back well into the 19th century and include many reports of government-sponsored scientific and ethnographic explorations. The Library is also a depository for Commonwealth of Virginia documents.  The collection houses Virginia law, other General Assembly material, and departmental publications published from 1865 to the present. A comprehensive collection of early Virginia documents is also located in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. The Library is a depository for publications of the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. It also collects extensively from the OECD, World Bank, UNESCO, IMF, ILO, and other International Governmental Organizations (IGOs).

Jorge Luis Borges Collection Works by and about the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), a distinguished poet and essayist and one of the finest writers of short stories in world literature.  The collection contains more than two thousand items spanning his sixty-five year career. There are copies of every known first edition, including those from the 1920's which survive in no more than four or five copies, as well as later editions and printings of his writings, augmented by translations into a variety of languages. Secondary works represented include a comprehensive collection of literary criticism in many languages, and numerous anthologies containing his works.  There are interviews with Borges, original manuscripts, and letters.  Scholars can study early works in their first printed form, some from the manuscript stages, through later variants, printings, editions, or translations.

Kore Image Collection The Kore Image Collection, delivered through ArtStor, includes content created by the Library in close collaboration with the Department of Art and the University of Virginia Art Museum, and includes cultural heritage documentation of works and sites from around the globe.

Mackay-Smith Collection of European Music, 1650-1910 Alexander Mackay-Smith's "working library" today forms the nucleus of the University of Virginia's Music Library.  Presented to the University in 1946 the collection includes complete runs of what at that time constituted virtually all the major musicological journals, an impressive array of major reference works, bibliographies, printed library catalogs, monographs, and, above all, scores. The collection'sgreatest strength is in contemporary editions of 18th-century instrumental music, particularly trio sonatas, which are now housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. The trio sonatas of one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite composers, Carlo Antonio Campioni, are especially well represented.

Monticello Music Collection  Contains music owned by the Jefferson and Randolph families, including published vocal and instrumental works and manuscript fragments; manuscript book of songs and pieces thought to have belonged to Martha Jefferson Randolph; and a manuscript music notebook, ca. 1770, thought to have belonged to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. (NOTE: Access restricted to the use of the microfilm to insure the conservation of the originals. Request by microfilm reel number M 2256-M 2260) Housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

Newspapers  The Library has a large collection of current and historical U.S., Virginia, and international newspapers in print, online, and in microform.

South Asia Collections The South Asia collections have been built over a period of 40 years and support teaching and research in South Asian languages (Urdu, Hindi, and Persian) and cultures, history, politics, anthropology, art, cinema and religious studies.  Particularly strong holdings in religion inlude works on Hinduism, Islam, Indian philosophical systems, and Buddhism.

Thomas Jefferson Papers  The collection of Jefferson papers comprises 3,650 items.  Most are original documents or contemporary transcripts made by secretaries or family members, but some are more recent transcripts and photographic copies of documents which remain in private hands or in less readily accessible institutional repositories.  Of the total, 1610 items are written by Jefferson and the rest of the correspondence is to Jefferson or bears a direct relationship to him. There are approximately 80 architectural drawings by Jefferson, most of them relating to the building of the University of Virginia. The holdings concentrate on Jefferson's relations with family and friends, his diverse intellectual interests, and his efforts to establish the University of Virginia. They complement the larger collections of mainly official papers at the Library of Congress and of mainly private papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, as well as smaller collections held by other institutions.  A special category of printed Jeffersoniana has been included from the University's rare book collections, comprising works dedicated to Jefferson by hand, and those inscribed or annotated by him.

Tibetan Collection The Library owns one of the most complete Tibetan collections in the world, built since the late 1960's.  The core of the research collection consists of over 5,700 pecha volumes containing about 9,500 titles of texts.  Many of these pecha are in the format of single sheets, block-printed on both sides; most are unbound, but some are bound.  Other pecha are reprints bound as codexes. Most of the materials in the collection are in the Tibetan language and script, and  published in India, Bhutan, and Nepal, and some have been published more recently in China or Tibet itself. Almost all were published in extremely small press runs, making them virtually irreplaceable and unique. Since 2003 the Library has been acquiring the complete run of digitized Tibetan texts as they become available in eight annual sets of about 1,000 volumes from the Tibetan Resource Center; these are mainly pecha, but other formats are also included. The collection's materials cover a full range of subjects of Tibetan literature, consisting primarily of texts on the many forms of Tibetan religion, especially Buddhism.  Other subjects include the Tibetan language, Sanskrit, and the principles of Tibetan Buddhist art and iconography. The collection includes specialized reference materials, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, guides, catalogs, bibliographies, tables of contents (dkar chags), and other search tools. The Tibetan Collection is housed in a closed area, but staff are available to retrieve materials and for consultation. Its contents can be searched in the Library's online catalog and its materials circulate to Tibetan scholars. A large number of secondary materials on Tibetan studies are in the Library's general circulating collection.

Tracy w. McGregor Library of American History is a rich collection of Americana and accounts of travel and exploration in the Western Hemisphere amassed by Tracy W. McGregor (1869-1936) and donated to the University of Virginia in 1938. The collection has continued to grow since that time. It is preeminent in the area of southeastern American history, but is also particularly strong in material about New England, with a superb collection from the Mather family. While it contains materials dating from the fifteenth century through the nineteenth century, many of its most important holdings are from the Colonial period through the early Republic.  The earliest book in the collection is the first edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia, printed in 1475, representing pre-discovery science and geography.  Another important work is the letter which first announced to Europe the results of Columbus' first voyage.  The library includes a copy of Captain John Smith;s True Relation, the first printed account of the Virginia colony; a contemporary account of Bacon's rebellion; and Thomas Jefferson's own annotated copy of his Notes on the State of Virginia. Early material concerning New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies include Mourt's Relation, the first printed account of the Pilgrims in New England; John White's The Planters Plea (1630), a source for early colonization attempts in Massachusetts; a copy of Roger Williams' Key to the Language of America (1643), the first serious attempt to record the vocabulary of the Indians of New England; and the manuscript diary of Cotton Mather. Revolutionary era materials include the first printing (by John Dunlap) of the Declaration of Independence, and numerous accounts of the war. Works from the Civil War period include a collection of 1,000 Confederate imprints; an inscribed copy of General William T. Sherman's war reports of his "March to the Sea"; and a bound volume of General Philip Sheridan's privately printed war reports, once owned by him.  The McGregor Library's collection of maps is equally superb and distinguished.

Video Collection  Located on the third floor of Clemons Library, the Robertson Media Center contains an extensive video collection that circulates to the faculty, staff and students of the University.  The collection currently contains more than 30,000 titles in VHS, Laserdisc and DVD format.  Diverse genres, disciplines and languages are represented among the holdings, with particularly strong collections of Spanish and Indian films.  Subject to fair use guidelines, the RMC will also purchase and assist faculty in the use of digital media materials.  While the primary focus of the collection is the teaching needs of the University's faculty and graduate students, the center's collection is also a popular divesion for all members of the University community.  You may search our catalog for video titles.

William Faulkner Collection is comprised of two major parts. The first part is the collection of major manuscripts and personal papers in Faulkner's possession at the time of his death, which he stated should be bequeathed to the University of Virginia. The Library holds the world's largest collection of Faulkner's manuscripts, including holograph manuscripts (Flags in the Dust, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, and The Wild Palms) and early typescript versions (Soldiers' Pay, Mosquitoes, and Flags in the Dust), from nineteen published novels and two unpublished novels. It also contains typescripts and manuscripts of many stories and essays; galley and page proofs, revised and unrevised, of many of the novels; and numerous letters and photographs.  The second major part is the Linton R. Massey Collection, an extraordinary collection of the printed works of Faulkner that focuses on the physical history of each title from day of publication to the most recent reprinting of texts, with every idiosyncrasy of binding or dust jacket or textual variant represented. The Massey Collection also aims to acquire all foreign editions and translations of each Faulkner title. It is known as the most extensive and complete accumulation of books by and about Faulkner ever assembled.