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Research Guides

Archives and Special Collections

Our Mission

CUNY Graduate Center Archives and Special Collections, Mina Rees Library, seeks to collect, organize, preserve, and make accessible materials documenting the history of the Graduate Center and its constituents, along with unique collections that support the research and educational mission of the University. We aim to cultivate relationships with affiliated organizations, community groups, and individuals that create official and non-official records of the faculty, staff, and student experience at the Graduate Center as we work towards creating a comprehensive historical resource for the shared benefit of our communities.

We invite and encourage researchers and members of the public to use our collections regardless of their purpose in doing so, whether for teaching, research, creative/artistic endeavors, or other explorations.

Plan your visit to the archives.

Our Holdings

CUNY Graduate Center Archives and Special Collections, Mina Rees Library, maintains a growing collection of over 400 linear feet of archival material, 260 rare books, 18,000 doctoral and master's theses, and other distinctive materials.

GSUC Archives and Campus History

The Mina Rees Library is the designated repository for the institutional archives of The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York (GSUC). Collections include official records, reports, correspondence, pamphlets, books, periodicals and publications, photographs, audiovisual recordings, realia, and other materials, all documenting or otherwise related to the history of graduate education at CUNY. 

Special Collections

Special Collections was established in the 1970s to house a small number of archival collections and rare books that had been acquired over time by GC President Mina Rees and faculty of the Graduate Center. The collection now comprises 260 rare volumes and a small number of manuscript and archival collections.

Our History

The Institutional Archives were gathered in the late 1990s and early 2000s, mainly from sources within the Graduate Center, but some documents came from the CUNY Administration and, via correspondence and copying, from some of CUNY’s component colleges. Paul Perkus, who had been the archivist at CUNY Central for twenty years, conducted an initial survey of records held by GC administrative offices. These were soon transferred and arranged by John Rothman, who served as a volunteer archivist at the Graduate Center for 14 years after an illustrious career at the New York Times. In 2015, the Archives were moved to a temporary location due to construction on the library's C level, and no further additions were accepted until 2023, when the Mina Rees Library restarted its archives program with guidance from New York State's Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services program.

The library holds a small number of manuscript collections and rare books that have been donated since the Graduate Center's founding in 1961.