Media & Digital Collections

The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has extensive holdings of film and video, sound recordings, and digital materials in all formats. These materials are exceptional sources for the historical study of media technologies, as well as a means of understanding various subject collections.

Our collections include over 13,000 motion pictures, from 8mm and 16mm films to magnetic and digital video formats. Topics of note in our film and video collections include Cornell University, early Ithaca, and national politics. Among these materials are films related to psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers and video recordings of journalist Phil Zwickler. These motion picture holdings are complemented by outstanding collections documenting the history of photography and visual culture, from daguerreotypes and stereographs to posters, broadsides, prints, architectural drawings, and digital images.

We hold over 22,000 sound recordings in formats from wax cylinders and wire recordings to reel-to-reel tapes, LPs, and CDs. Our audio collections include oral histories and radio programs related to Cornell, as well as progressive news programs such as the Rest of the News. Other notable audio materials include the research materials of ornithologist Arthur Allen and recordings documenting musical movements such as hip hop and punk.

The Division actively collects digital materials as part of our manuscript collections in all subject areas. We are archiving web sites related to Cornell University, as well as the sites of organizations whose papers we collect. The Division is also working to digitize its physical collections. For a list of our digital collections, please visit the Digital Collections page.

Prominent among the Division’s growing digital and new media collections is the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, a collection of digital and interactive art with a concentration on 21st century developments in cinema, video, installation, photography, and sound.

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