McKell Library

Specialties

The McKell Library has over 37,000 items in its catalogue. Included are over 16,480 books and 15,000 photographs as well as manuscripts, sheet music, diaries, etc. Subjects range the entire Dewey Decimal System. The McKell Collection consists of fifteen manuscripts, fourteen of them illuminated, eleven incunabula (books printed before 1501) and some 2300 other titles — primarily relating to, or written for, children. The children’s literature starts with Régime Scholariu (1488) and is especially well represented in the period from 1760 to 1820. The library’s strongest subject is history. Contemporary accounts of the Revolutionary War include: American archives transcribed by Peter Force (1774 — 1776) and The American Revolution written in scriptural verse in 1793. A Narrative of the Campaign Against the Indians, Under the Command of Major General St. Clair (1812) bridges the period leading to the War of 1812. The collection of this period is outstanding.

The manuscript collection includes territorial and early statehood documents and papers of David Trimble, B. F. Stone, James Swearingen, Joshua Sill and others. The papers of Walter Dun (1782 — 1838) and of Samuel Williams (1786 — 1859) contain detailed pictures of life in early Ohio. Early newspapers, in print and on microfilm, are also available. The early Ohio imprints number almost two hundred.