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Although famous for their athletic rivalries, there are many ways
in which the two illustrious academic giants the University of Michigan
and Ohio State University both cooperate and complement each other
in the academic arena. One of these areas is their library holdings
and services. Both are prestigious research libraries belonging
to the Association of Research Libraries, with Michigan’s holdings
approaching 8 million volumes campus-wide and Ohio State’s
collection numbering close to 6 million volumes. Both are listed
among the top 25 public universities nationwide in the annual rankings
of U.S. News & World Report and are the premier universities
in their respective states.
This is a collaborative
project undertaken by the
libraries and university archives
of Ohio State University and
the University of Michigan.
The idea for a joint exhibit
was proposed in 2001 by Fred
G. Ruffner, Jr., a 1950 Ohio
State graduate and resident
of Michigan, who is the founder
of Gale Research Company.
In response, three different
exhibits were created. One
exhibit,
created by the staffs of the
Ohio State University Archives and the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, explores the
longstanding football rivalry of the two institutions by using information
drawn from the archives and presented in a side-by-side comparison.
The other two online exhibits feature materials from the holdings
of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library of Ohio State University and the Special Collections Library of the University of Michigan, and emphasize
the scholarly collaboration between the two institutions. These
two large libraries, with very broad and deep collections, naturally
have many overlapping collections. But each also has materials that
are unique. The two exhibits featured here show just a few examples
of materials held at the University of Michigan that provide a rich
documentation of Ohio's history and a reciprocal view of materials
from the Ohio State University library that document Michigan's
history. Use the buttons below to enter these exhibits.
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