Featured Collections
Explore Our Collections
This page highlights a selection of UW Libraries collections from over 7 million unique titles, including extensive special collections and digital archives in a multitude of formats such as rare and unique books, maps, microfilm, photographs, newspapers, ephemera, born-digital material, and the University’s academic and historical archives.
Ask Us!
Get help from librarians by email, phone, 24/7 chat, or make an appointment with a subject expert
Only at UW Libraries
Researchers come to UW Libraries from around the region and the world for the special collections that document local and regional histories throughout the Pacific Northwest as well as the extensive distinctive and international collections.
Federal Depository
As a Federal Depository Library for more than 135 years, UW Libraries is one of the oldest depositories of its kind, with government documents and publications from throughout the country, providing unique insight into federal landmark cases and law from the 1890s on.
University Archives
UW Libraries’ Special Collections is home to several collections documenting the history of the University of Washington from early administrative documents, photographs of campus life, student newspapers and more.
Rare Books and Materials
To view materials in the Special Collections Reading Room, please submit a request and schedule an appointment.
Historical Geography and Scientific Thinking
A 16th century bestseller, Peter Apian’s Cosmographia reflects evolving understandings about the earth, including the recently discovered America. It allowed readers to interact with it, using volvelles, paper models of scientific instruments with moveable parts, to solve problems including determining time at different locations or calculating latitudes.
Pacific Northwest Architecture
This drawing by Bebb & Gould, the architects of Suzzallo Library, is part of UW’s Special Collections’ historic architecture collections. Included are works by many of the major figures and works in Pacific Northwest architecture, landscape architecture, and engineering. The drawings and related design materials in this collection form the largest regional repository documenting the built environment of the Pacific Northwest.
Historical Children’s Literature
“S is for Squirrel” is a hand-colored lithograph in Alphabet of Quadrupeds printed by the London artist and publisher, Charles Blair Leighton. This alphabet book is just one from over 7,000 titles that comprise the collection of historical children’s literature from the 17th to 20th century.
Tateuchi East Asia Library: Featured Collections
The Tateuchi East Asia Library is one of the premiere libraries of its kind in the US with nearly 800,000 volumes of materials on East Asia in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Manchurian, Mongolian, and other languages. The Tateuchi library is the first institution outside China to acquire the Twenty-Five Dynastic Histories database and the first academic library in North America to establish a direct connection to the NACSIS-IR service in Japan. The following are a few highlights from Tateuchi East Asia Library’s special collections:
芥子園畫傳Jie zi yuan hua zhuan: Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden 芥子園畫傳
Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden 芥子園畫傳 is one of the first art manuals on classical Chinese painting that was block printed with color.
Koetsu Utai Bon: Tadanori (光悦謡本. 忠度) [Noh Chantbook in the Kōetsu Style, Tadanori]
Noh chantbook (anonymous; attributed to Hon’ami Kōetsu’s circle) Movable-type printed (Tokuseibon 特製本)Published between 1596 and 1614. A refined Noh chantbook featuring the play Tadanori, based on the life of warrior-poet Taira no Tadanori. The elegant typography exemplifies Japan’s early movable type artistry.
Liberation Space Collection (Korean Literature from 1945-1950)
A digital collection of rare literary works from Korean collections of the University of Washington Libraries. The collection includes fiction, poetry, essays, reading texts and many more from 1945 to 1950, when Korea was liberated from the Japanese colonial period and became an independent country before the Korea War abruptly broke out. The digital collection provides not only scanned full-text images but also keyword searchable texts for data mining.