Woodson Digital Collections supports the research needs of the Rice community and beyond by providing high-quality digital content of rare or unique materials held by Fondren Library.

Managed through Rice's DSpace repository, these digital holdings include original photographs, letters, drawings, rare publications, and other physical formats, presented in various file formats -- jpg files, pdf files, some of which are full-text searchable - all of which can be accessed on the web. Sound files and other formats will be added soon.

William Ward Watkin Architecture Collection  

The papers of William Ward Watkin, First Supervising Architect of Rice Institute and First Chairman, Rice Architecture Dept. includes architectural drawings, photographs, correspondence, articles, speeches, and more, dating from 1903-1956.

The Watkin collection's documents are not currently full-text searchable; use keyword searching.

For further information on the Watkin papers, see the guide to the papers or contact woodson@rice.edu.

Rice Institute Pamphlet Collection

The Rice Institute Pamphlet was an interdisciplinary scholarly journal published at Rice between 1915 and 1981. The journal featured papers by leading intellectuals such as Julian Huxley, an English biologist, philosopher and early faculty member at Rice; Maurice Ravel, a French composer known for such works as Boléro; and Emile Borel, a French mathematician who created the first effective theory of the measure of sets of points. The digitization project includes Volume 1 (1915) to Volume 33 (1946) and the index volume for volumes 1-47.

The Rice Institute Pamphlet is  full-text searchable. Keyword searching of descriptive metadata is also available and would provide some additional subject access.

Illuminated Sacred Music Manuscript Collection

Rare 15th and 16th century original music manuscripts depicting religious hymns and songs in Latin, hand drawn and beautifully illustrated with brilliant tempera paints on large vellum sheets.

See also the on-line guide to the physical collection.

Schumann Collection

Original materials related to 19th century German composer and music critic Robert Schumann, including a contemporary manuscript report of Schumann's conducting at Dusseldorf, written by W. Wortmann, deputy mayor of Dusseldorf and a leading member of the administration of the Allgemeiner Musikverein (of whose orchestra and chorus Schumann had been appointed director in 1850).

Additional items include small portraits of Robert and Clara Schumann and brief correspondence related to the Schumanns.

This collection is not currently full-text searchable; keyword searches will search the descriptive metadata.