A Book Collector’s Legacy

At over 22,000 rare books and over 65 linear feet of manuscript materials, The John MacKay Shaw Childhood in Poetry Collection is easily the largest single collection in FSU Special Collections & Archives. It serves as a living testament to its creator, John MacKay Shaw (May 15, 1897-March 15, 1984), an AT&T business executive, philanthropist, writer,

Manuscript Collections 101

FSU Special Collections & Archives collects historical materials in support of all of the University’s academic programs and for the benefit of local, national, and international scholars. The collections include handwritten documents, published and unpublished textual works, printed posters and flyers, sound recordings, motion pictures, and more, covering a wide range of content including Florida

Bringing a Hidden Collection to Light

Discussing “hidden” collections is a popular pastime in archival circles. We all suffer from collections that have simply never been processed or made discoverable enough for our patrons to find them. It becomes even more difficult when archives staff doesn’t even know when collections exist and there is no discovery tool either for them to

Introducing Ourselves

The Special Collections & Archives division of Florida State University Libraries includes Special Collections & Archives, Heritage Protocol & University Archives, the Claude Pepper Library, Cataloging & Description and the Digital Library Center. The division advances research by acquiring, preserving and providing access to primary and secondary source materials through our different areas. Our division