This collection consists primarily of letters sent to Columbia University President Grayson Kirk following the Board of Trustees' acceptance of the resignation of Assistant Professor Charles Van Doren from the Department of English on November 2, 1959.

A collection of photo albums (111 items) representing the faculty and graduating classes of Columbia College (now known as Columbia University in the City of New York), and more specifically, the School of Arts (the undergraduate college now known as Columbia College). While the majority of the albums represent Columbia College, there are a few from other Schools including: the School of Law, the School of Mines, and the School of Music. Additionally, there is one album with portraits of Trustees, one from the School of Mines Summer School of Practical Engineering, and one documenting the performance of Capt. Kidd.

The surviving files of official correspondence, reports, documents, and printed materials of King's College from 1750 to 1784 and Columbia College from 1785 to 1890, as well as Columbia University up to 1964. The King's College era materials include grants, deeds, indentures, lists of governors, leases, accounts, etc. The Columbia College era papers commence with documentation regarding the attempts to revive the college at the end of the American Revolution. In the later period these papers primarily supplement and document the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees. Much material was destroyed and scattered in the late 19th century leaving this collection quite incomplete.

This collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, memoranda, biographical forms, and promotional materials of The Columbia Forum, 1958-1975.

Included are architectural drawings, surveys, maps, and site proposals, for Columbia's Morningside Heights campus, designed primarily by McKim, Mead & White. Other architects represented include Adams & Woodbridge; Arnold Brunner (who designed the School of Mines); Eggers & Higgins; the Columbia University Buildings and Grounds Department; Howells and Stokes (designed St. Paul's Chapel); Reinhard, Hofmeister and Wahlquist; and James Gamble Rogers. Drawings for buildings no longer in existence or never constructed and drawings for later alterations, are included. Architectural drawings of the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, and surveys of the asylum site prepared for Columbia, 1888-1894. Also included are site plans and proposals, surveys, and maps, circa 1890s-1910s, showing the surrounding area, including such institutions as the Jewish Theological Seminary, St. Luke's Home, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Grant's Tomb, and others. Drawings for the Womans's Hospital in the State of New York (designed by Allen & Collens, erected 1903, demolished in the 1970s), circa 1903-1914, are also included. This building was used to house the Columbia School of the Arts in the 1960s since it was located near the campus.

This collection includes tape recordings and some phonograph records of the numerous conferences, seminars and other events held during 1953 to 1954 in celebration of Columbia University's 200th anniversary. In addition there are 31 tape reels of the CBS Radio Network's series "Man's Right to Knowledge." Also included are Bicentennial press releases, typescript and galley proofs with manuscript corrections for two volumes in the Columbia University Bicentennial Series: RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM IN THE AMERICAS and THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

The collection consists of 624 cuneiform tablets (dating from circa 3100-539 BCE), and some ancient clay objects. Accompanying these are some twentieth century casts, and a collection of catalogs of the collection, articles about various parts, especially Plimpton 322, and correspondence about the tablets, including a number of letters, mostly from Edgar J. Banks, to George A. Plimpton, and others about tablets now in the Columbia collection.

Architectural drawings (no longer in current use by Facilities Management), transferred to the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library from the Dept. of Facilities Management pertaining to proposals, construction, alteration and addition of properties formerly used or owned, and buildings demolished or still extant. The dates of the materials span 1895 to today. The drawings include plans showing the heating and ventilation systems, electrical and plumbing details, and some original construction materials. Some of the buildings represented in this collection are: Avery Hall; Earl Hall; St. Paul's Chapel; Teachers College; Low Library; Ferris Booth; and Uris Hall, as well as details of fences; steps; statues; and bronze railings. Some of the architects hired by the University include McKim, Mead & White, Howells & Stokes, James Gamble Rogers, and Allen & Collens, as well as builder and architect R. Guastavino Co. who was responsible for the domes and vaults of St. Paul's Chapel, Earl Hall, and the Van Amringe Memorial

An artificial collection of phonograph records, reels of audio tape recordings, and motion picture films recording a variety of Columbia University academic and extra-curricular activities and events such as lectures; speeches, some at award ceremonies; commencement; installation of Nicholas M. Butler and Dwight D. Eisenhower as presidents of the university; King George VI of England during his visit, 1939; speech of England's Queen Mother, Elizabeth in 1954; homecoming; football, the band; academic and alumni conferences; and radio programs under the auspices of Columbia. Many of the recordings are of Eisenhower. Other prominent personalities include John Foster Dulles, Herbert Hoover, Isidor Rabi, Eleanor Roosevelt, John R. Dunning, and the Shah of Iran.

This collection contains records documenting Columbia University's activities slightly prior to, during and immediately following World War I. The collection consists of mostly correspondence, but also includes newspaper clippings, pamphlets, various publications, reports, photographs, service record cards, and numerous lists of Columbia men and women who served during the war.

Records documenting Columbia University's activities prior to, during and immediately following World War II represent the focus of the collection. The collection contains material generated by a variety of groups and offices on campus evidencing the varied activities undertaken by the Columbia community during this time of world crisis.

Autograph letters, official and private documents, and accounts, which were previously mounted in eleven volumes. Most of these relate to Columbia University or people associated with the University.

This collection contains three sets of reports from the academic departments to the President of Columbia College (1890) and Columbia University (1900 and 1927).

This collection consists of the course enrollment, faculty service and relative tuition income for each academic department in the Arts & Sciences and the Schools of Engineering, Business and Law. Originally these "course materials" included institutional figures from 1955-1956 to 1960-1961, but were updated throughout the 1960s.

Correspondence addressed to the editors, Wendell T. Bush and Frederick J.E. Woodbridge, from numerous philosophers including John Dewey, William James, Josiah Royce, and George Santayana. There are two typewritten manuscripts of John Dewey"The Naturalistic Theory of Perception by the Senses" and "Valuation Judgments and Immediate Quality" both of which contain the author's holograph corrections and emendations. Also, two manuscripts of Ernst Cassirer"Kant and Rousseau" and "Ficino's Place in Intellectual History.".

The collection contains primarily architectural drawing reproductions documenting the site history of Columbia University's Geology Library from Schermerhorn Hall on Columbia Unversity's Morningside campus to, later, the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. The drawings are largely floor plans and some building elevations of both the early and later sites, but the collection also includes a survey map of the Palisades, N.Y. site, and site plans for the Thomas W. Lamont, Esq. Country Residence and Gardens. Also included are 9 student drawings of the Geology and Zoology Library in Schermerhorn Hall by School of Mines student Eugene B. Sieminski, Jr. dated 1958. Architects represented include McKim, Mead, and White, Paver & Wildfoerster, and Olmstead Brothers Landscaper Architects.

Drawings executed by Le Corbusier as illustrations for lectures on architecture and city planning delivered at Columbia University in 1935 and 1961. Notations are in French. Drawings range from approximately seven to twenty feet long.

Legal contracts between the Owners, Managers, Architects and Builders regarding various aspects of the construction work on Theatre #10 of the Metropolitan Square Development project. The contracts detail what was specifically to be done by the construction crews and what was and was not included in each part of the specified construction process.

This series consists of transcripts of three oral histories with Nelson A. Rockefeller. Two of the interviews were conducted by the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. Transcripts of these interviews are also housed at Columbia University. There are no tape recordings for any of these interviews at Rockefeller Archive Center.

A collection of correspondence between Nora Lourie Percival (BC '36) and her first husband, Herman Gund (CC '34 and Journalism MA '35) as well as copies of Columbia and Barnard College literary publications to which they both contributed.

The Oracle Bones collection comprises 128 authentic, forged, and unconfirmed pieces of ox scapula and tortoise shells, also known as oracle bones (jiagu, 甲骨), that were used as a form of divination in ancient China during the late Shang dynasty, dating from circa 1300-1050 BCE.

This collection contains the records of the Trustee and other committees in charge of finding a new University President. The records include the search for the replacements for Presidents Nicholas Murray Butler (1945), Grayson Kirk (1968), William J. McGill (1979), Michael I. Sovern (1992) and George Rupp (2001).

This collection consists of the front desk registers and other ledgers and volumes used in managing Columbia's first residence halls in the Morningside campus.

A collection of items left by members of the Columbia community, as well as some local community neighbors, in tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg following her death on September 18, 2020. The contents include notes, letters, posters, flowers and objects. Also includes 136 digital images of the memorial at Alma Mater as well as at Ginsburg's portrait in the Law School taken by the University Photographer, Eileen Barroso

Beginning in the late 1970s, Columbia students urged the university to divest from companies doing business in South Africa in protest of South Africa's system of apartheid. After a series of student protests culminating in a month long blockade of Hamilton Hall in 1985, the Trustees voted to begin full divestment. The collection contains the administrative records of this decision making process in the 1970s-1980s.

The collection consists of the TRIGA reactor records from 1967 to 1972 as well as correspondence with the US Atomic Energy Commission from 1978 to 1981.

This collection consists of the records related to ceremonies, events, prizes, dinners, etc. It includes the planning records of events related to University prizes (Butler Medal, Bancroft, Cabot, Horwitz), honorary degrees, dignitary visits, presidential inaugurations and commencement. There are also materials related to the University's greetings, credentials and representation at non-Columbia events.