Special Collections: About

Each year the Special Collections creates a variety of displays to highlight the many materials in the collection.  Periodically, we also create a short publication to accompany the display.  These publications, called Topics, are generally a more in-depth discussion of the materials that were used in the display.

Our Purpose

The purpose of Special Collections at Loras is to protect and preserve printed and manuscript books, and other manuscript materials of importance that would be difficult or impossible to replace. While these items are placed under restricted access, they are intended for use by students and faculty. We encourage the Loras community to use them for their studies and research projects.

Our Collections

There are over 7,500 items in the collection and the majority can be found by searching the Library Catalog.

Collections of note include:

• 20 manuscript books dating back to the 12th century
• 65 incunabula (books printed in the 15th century)
• The Horace Howard Furness Collection of the Latin poet Horace
• The John Caldwell-Irving Windt Collection of Checker Books
• The Torch Press Imprints collection
• A collection of Bibles in over 225 languages of the world
• A collection of the Limited Editions Club books
• The Rev. Karl G. Schroeder T. S. Eliot collection
• The Rev. J. K. Downing Collection of Encyclopedias
• The Dubuque Authors Collection
• The Faculty Publications Collection
• The Eric Gill Collection
• The Raymond Roseliep Poetry Collection
• English Manuscript Indentures