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.
CUNY Graduate Center Archives and Special Collections, Mina Rees Library, is a growing collection of over 400 linear feet of archival material, 260 rare books, 14,000 doctoral and master's theses, and other distinctive materials.
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.
The earliest material relates to the Board of Higher Education and the graduate education division established in 1961, which would later become the Graduate School and University Center. Records of university-wide committees, the development of the Graduate Council and its bylaws and the general administration of the Graduate School are well represented in the collection. The Archives holds the personal and presidential papers of Mina Rees, which document her time at Hunter College, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and her eventual role as the first president of the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. Other collections of interest include the records of the Doctoral and Graduate Students Council, which document issues and concerns of doctoral students from the 1960s to the early 2000s, and those of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies, the first university-based center dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of vital concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals and communities.
Some offices within the Graduate Center maintain their own collections of photographs and publication records, which have not yet been incorporated into the GSUC Archives due to space limitations. The Archives does not routinely collect the papers of individual faculty members for similar reasons, though we may consider such donations on a case by case basis.
Special Collections was established in the 1970s to house a small number of archival collections and rare books that had been acquired over the years by GC President Mina Rees and various members of the Graduate Center faculty. The collection now comprises 260 rare volumes and a small number of manuscript and archival collections. Primarily consisting of donated collections, the Special Collections division does not actively purchase rare or unique materials at this time. Graduate Center faculty publications are located in the circulating collection of the Mina Rees Library.
The Library holds approximately 14,000 bound copies of Graduate Center dissertations from 1965-2015 from all doctoral programs except Business, Criminal Justice, and Engineering, which were routinely transferred to the CUNY campus library associated with each joint-degree program. Bound copies of all Graduate Center master's theses from 1970 to 2015 are also held by the Mina Rees Library. The library ceased archiving bound copies in 2015.
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.
The library's general catalog, OneSearch, provides collection level description of our manuscript and archival collections, and all of our rare books are individually cataloged there. To view materials, email us to make an appointment.
Our finding aids are currently being migrated to a new catalog, where you will be able to search across collections and browse record groups for the institutional archives. We anticipate completion in Spring 2025. In the meantime, PDF versions of finding aids are available in CUNY Academic Works.
View our searchable finding aids catalog.
View our PDF finding aids.
Materials located in Archives and Special Collections are non-circulating and must be consulted in our reading room. Due to construction on the library's concourse level, the archives reading room has been temporarily relocated to room 2304. All visitors must schedule an appointment in advance by emailing us. Appointments are generally available between 10am - 4pm, M-F.
To prepare for your visit, please consult our general guidelines below, as well as our policies and services. Upon arrival, visitors must fill out a registration form and agree to the library's conditions of use.
Read our conditions of use.