Ostraca are pottery fragments and flakes of limestone with writing in ink. "Ostraka" is the plural; "ostrakon" is a single item; the word can also be spelled with a "c" as in ostraca and ostracon. Some contain Greek, but the majority is Coptic, and they range in date from the sixth to the seventh century CE. They include about one hundred school exercises (especially abecedaries), private letters, religious texts, receipts, etc. With few exceptions, the ostraka come from monasteries in Upper Egypt around Luxor. Columbia Libraries Ostraka range in date from 150 BCE to the ninth century CE; the majority is dated 6th – 7th century CE. Some of the ostraka come from early gifts and from Egypt Exploration Society distribution of Oxyrhynchos ostraka, but most of the ostraca were acquired at the behest of Professor A. Arthur Schiller in two lots from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1958 and 1961. They come largely from the unpublished material deriving from the Museum's excavations at Deir el Bahri and at the Monastery of Epiphanius, though some were purchases by and gifts to the MMA. Many of these Coptic ostraka are very fragmentary and little can be said about their contents. In 1991, 10 ostraca found near the ancient Mons Porphyites, in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, in Egypt, were donated by Roger Bagnall and added to the collection.

This comprehensive communal archive of the Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish community provides an invaluable window into the day-to-day proceedings and official communal interactions, both within the membership of the community itself, as well as with other Jewish communities in Holland, and across the European continent. Religious functionaries, such as Rabbis and religious court judges, as well as lay leaders are represented within this archival collection.

Pizmon. Manuscript in Hebrew and Spanish. The Song "Elo-him Yisadenu" written in both languages and with dedication to "His Excellency Jacob Rodrigues Pereira."

A collection of 17 cataloged items collected by Seymour B. Durst as part of his Old York Library collection. In addition there is a quite extensive collection of newspapers.

An indenture on parchment from 1775, relating to the estate of one George Pasmore of Middlesex County, England.

A single Voltaire manuscript: "Anecdotes sur l'arrivée du corps de Voltaire à Scelliers par Etienne Faireau", 1778

43 documents on vellum.

Letters, some verse, and a few documents.

An unpublished series of letters recording a visit to the United States and Canada in 1841-1842. Following in the footsteps of Harriet Martineau (Society in America, 1837) and coinciding with Charles Dickens's visit to the United States and the subsequent publication of American Notes (1842), these letters provide an invaluable account of life in Antebellum America.

Autograph letter from John Ruskin to Frederick James Furnivall, 14 November 1854 (with envelope) and lithograph portrait photograph