Columbia University Archives
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Butler Library, 6th Floor
535 West 114th Street
New York, NY 10027
Phone: (212) 854-3786
Fax: (212) 854-1365
E-mail: uarchives@columbia.edu
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Barnard College
The Barnard Archives and Special Collections serves as the final repository for the historical records of Barnard College, from its founding in 1889 to the present day. For more information, please contact archives@barnard.edu.
Health Sciences Library
The Archives and Special Collections at the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library of Columbia University can help you find information about the schools of the Medical Center: College of Physicians & Surgeons, School of Nursing, College of Dental Medicine (formerly the School of Dental & Oral Surgery), Mailman School of Public Health, and the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences. For more information, please contact hslarchives@columbia.edu.
The Core Curriculum is the set of courses required of all undergraduates at Columbia as a general education regardless of their choice in major. Started in 1919, the goal of the Core is to provide all Columbia students with wide-ranging perspectives on significant ideas and achievements in literature, philosophy, history, music, art and science. To get started on your research about Columbia's Core Curriculum:
This site offers general information about the Core for current students (classes, requirements, policies and prizes) but also offers information about the history of the Core.
Published in 1995 by the Office of the Dean, Columbia College to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Contemporary Civilization course, this book aims to serve as a "permanent record of the core curriculum."
Proceeding roughly by decade, this exhibition shows how the course transformed and developed over the years. By also focusing on the development of the Core Curriculum as a whole, the exhibition explains how CC's faculty, administrators and students have worked together to keep the course relevant through a succession of crises and changes in the broader political, economic and social realms in the country and the world. This online exhibition is based on a physical exhibition of the same name which was on display in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in February and March 2020.
Archival collections are non-circulating and can only be viewed in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's reading room (RBML). In order to use the University Archives collections at the RBML, you will be required to register your own Special Collections Research Account before your visit and to validate the account in person with government-issued photo identification or Columbia ID card. Once you have created your Special Collections Research Account, you will be able to request materials directly from the finding aid: click the check box located on the right for the box(es) you need, and then scroll back to the top of the container list document and click “Submit Request” button in the red-rimmed box at top. This should lead you directly to your Special Collections Research Account to complete the request form.
The Core Curriculum Records, 1937-2007 contains teaching and administrative materials chiefly pertaining to the Contemporary Civilization and Humanities A (now called Literature Humanities) courses. Materials include syllabi, exams, quizzes, teaching resources, administrative correspondence and memos, and curricular reviews and reports.
The Historical Subject Files consists of clippings, press releases, programs, and other printed matter compiled over the years by curators of the Columbiana Collection and staff of the University Archives. You can find Core-related materials in the following folders:
To find the materials related to the your research project, you should conduct keyword searches on the finding aids. Look for the "View all" link on the left side navigation (this will allow you to see the full container list or folder titles in the collections) and then "Find" (Ctrl +F) keywords in the container lists. Above, we have suggested some words or terms in the collection descriptions but don't forget to look for people's names as well.
For more information on how to access our collections, check out our Research & Access website. If you have any questions about how to find materials or how to access materials, please contact uarchives@columbia.edu.
Archival collections are non-circulating and can only be viewed in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's reading room (RBML). In order to use the University Archives collections at the RBML, you will be required to register your own Special Collections Research Account before your visit and to validate the account in person with government-issued photo identification or Columbia ID card. Once you have created your Special Collections Research Account, you will be able to request materials directly from the finding aid: click the check box located on the right for the box(es) you need, and then scroll back to the top of the container list document and click “Submit Request” button in the red-rimmed box at top. This should lead you directly to your Special Collections Research Account to complete the request form.
To find the materials related to the your research project, you should conduct keyword searches on the finding aids. Look for the "View all" link on the left side navigation (this will allow you to see the full container list or folder titles in the collections) and then "Find" (Ctrl +F) keywords in the container lists. Above, we have suggested some words or terms in the collection descriptions but don't forget to look for people's names as well.
For more information on how to access our collections, check out our Research & Access website. If you have any questions about how to find materials or how to access materials, please contact uarchives@columbia.edu.
There are a number of publications which have been digitized and are now easily searchable online.
A Century of Syllabi
Collected by Robert Thomas in preparation for the exhibition Insistent Change: Columbia's Core Curriculum at 100 (February 17-June 30, 2020), this Google Drive folder contains scans and/or photographs of Core Curriculum syllabi.
Columbia Daily Spectator
You can search the issues of the student newspaper, either by date or by keyword, by visiting the Columbia Spectator Digital Archive. The paper provides articles, opinion pieces and cartoons during the publication's long run (1877 to the present).
Columbia University Record Archive
Beginning as the University Record (September 1973-May 1975) and continuing to this day as the Columbia University Record (July 1975-present), this important university-wide publication, now scanned and fully searchable, is an incredibly rich resource of past Columbia activities, events, scientific research, awards and honors, faculty and staff updates, and informative profiles of campus personalities from 1973 to June 2016.
Columbia College Today
Started in 1954, Columbia College Today (CCT) is the official alumni magazine of the undergraduate Columbia College. Issues contain the latest news "Around the Quads," faculty and alumni publications, sport teams scores, alumni profiles, class notes, and obituaries. The Core has been the focus on a number of issues:
In addition to the special issues, here are some articles from CCT about the Core:
Here are some other sources you can consult online:
The following materials are non-circulating and can only be viewed in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's reading room (RBML). For some, there are additional copies in the Butler stacks (Please check the Libraries' online catalog CLIO to see if there are other copies of these works. In order to use the University Archives collections at the RBML, researchers are required to register their own Special Collections Research Account before their visit and to validate the account in person with government-issued photo identification or Columbia ID card.
Top - Cover of An Introduction to Contemporary Civilization, 5th edition, 1925 (call# CN C7634). University Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries.
Right - Students walking out of front entrance of Hamilton Hall next to Alexander Hamilton statue. (Scan #1144) Historical Photograph Collection, University Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries.