Special Collections opened its doors in 1969, when Roger H. Guedalla and George Quasha of the University’s English Department purchased a Modern Literature collection, which contained books and manuscripts focusing on the extraordinary group of authors and poets who had been involved with the Black Mountain College in North Carolina. These manuscripts are now housed within our Historic and Literary Manuscripts Collection (MC 100) and include original materials by Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and Fielding Dawson.

The manuscript and rare book collections document and support a wide range of disciplines. Collection highlights include:

	Senator Jacob K. Javits Collection: contains two million separate items, including printed documents, photographs, and motion picture footage.		Chinese Cookbook Collection: donated by Dr. Jacqueline Newman, it is the world's largest (over 3,000 titles) English-language cookbook collection.
	Long Island Collection: book, manuscript, map, and digitized collections on all aspects of Long Island history, including: the American Revolution; politics; the arts; environmental science; and literature.		AIDC 100 Archives: the collections of individuals and corporations that provide leadership and focus for the Automatic Identification Data Capture industry.
	William Butler Yeats Collection: the most extensive collection of the famed Irish poet and author’s manuscripts in existence housed outside of Ireland.		University Photographic Collection: over 13,000 positive and negative prints, 35 mm negatives, contact sheets, slides and oversized images.
	Contemporary letters and literature; manuscripts and works by Pietro di Donato, John Ciardi, Jorge Carrera Andrade, and Robert Payne.		Environmental Defense Fund Archives: the official repository of this public membership, non-profit, tax-exempt organization of scientists, lawyers, economists and citizens.

The University Archives includes printed, manuscript, and ephemeral materials created by the administration, faculty, staff, and students at Stony Brook University that are of permanent historic value. Holdings include complete sets student newspapers and Specula (yearbook), faculty directories, annual reports, catalogs, departmental papers, and extensive photograph collections.