The Rare Book Room of the B&ECPL houses among its local, national and international treasures the historical artifacts of the previous library institutions that preceded our present library system. Thousands of paper items have been preserved through the years including documents, certificates, flyers, photographs and library reports. Our predecessors left behind rich collections of Buffalo library history and the Rare Book Room has recently enhanced our finding aids to reflect the many papers and objects in this collection.
In this blog entry we would like to showcase some of the objects in the library archives. Among them, printers blocks for publications produced by the Buffalo Public and Grosvenor Libraries; an old printing press, inker stand and an antique lion’s head embosser; a sketch of the Grosvenor Library building from 1941 by H. G. Durston; watercolor sketches of the murals from the same library; metal photographic plates from 1906; and the Royal typewriter from the 1940’s that belonged to our beloved first curator of Rare Books, Jane Van Arsdale.
The Grosvenor Room: Genealogy, Local History, Maps, Music & Rare Books 