Welcome to Special Collections

The Special Collections department of the Michigan State University Libraries collects, houses, and preserves rare and unique materials within the MSU Libraries. Our materials cover a vast array of topics from Africana to Veterinary Medicine.

These materials are available to the public in our reading room.

Learn more: About Us »

Discover Special Collections

La pratique et enchiridion des causes criminelles (Louvain, 1555), by Joost de Damhouder, is a rare edition of one of the sixteenth century's most popular works of criminology. It describes the various crimes in simple language, with a woodcut of the crime being committed, where this is possible pictorially. There are 56 full-page woodcuts, most of them within architectural or decorative borders. Details are also provided of the procedure in the arrest, torture, prosecution and execution of the criminal. Our copy in the European History Collection is beautifully bound in full red morocco with blind stamp borders on front and back covers.

Learn More

• About Us
• Rules & Privileges
• Services
• FAQ
• Staff
• Special Collections Newsletters
• Support Special Collections

Did you Know...

• The first appearance of Rockwell Kent illustrations in book form was a series of drawings in Architectonics: The Tales of Tom Thumtack, Architect (1914), an amusing collection of architectural stories by his friend Frederick Squires.
• Among the extensive holdings of James Fenimore Cooper in the Literature Materials is The Oak Openings, or, the Bee Hunter, (New York, 1848), a novel set in Michigan.

Map to the Reading Room in MSU Library