Getting Started
The holdings in Special Collections include a wide range of print materials, personal papers, archival collections, photographs and electronic resources in support of teaching, study, and individuals’ curiosity. Special Collections materials are available for use by students, instructors and researchers in the Special Collections Reading Room, which is located on the second floor of Morris Library. Please note that Special Collections materials do not circulate and must be used in the Reading Room.
Special Collections provides access to several tools and resources to support research and discovery of our unique collection holdings:
DELCAT (Online Catalog)
DELCAT is the main gateway to the University of Delaware Library’s print and electronic collections. To find Special Collections materials cataloged in DELCAT, you can limit your search to “Special Collections” only.
Finding Aids for Archival Collections
A finding aid tells you about an archival collection – who created it and what is in it — so you can decide if the collection is useful to you.
Information on individual collections may also be found in the finding aids database.
Research Guides
Our research guides are a great place to start exploring the print and archival materials in Special Collections. The research guides provide descriptions of collections related to particular topics, such as book arts, politics, policy and government, and African American studies.
Digital Collections
In an effort to increase access to Special Collections materials, selected items and collections have been digitized and are available on our digital collections site, UDSpace and JSTOR. New content is added regularly, but the majority of materials in Special Collections are undigitized and not available online. For more information on digitized materials, please visit the Digital Collections page.