The History of the Written Word: Pages from the Past, 2400 BCE-1920 CE, consist of a collection of original leaves from rare books and manuscripts in limited portfolio sets.
The Medieval and Renaissance mss., 700-1600, consists of individual items acquired from time to time either as a gift or purchased from a variety of sources.
The Near Eastern mss., 700-1915, consist of a collection of individually acquired manuscripts pertaining to the region formerly known as the Near East, now referred to as the Middle East.
The Parker mss., 1264-1871, consist of commonplace books, legal records, account books, volumes on heraldry, rhetoric and logic, genealogy, sermons, political tracts, a diary, gazetteer and a jest book in verse.
The Pliny mss., 9th cent.-1938, are photostats of Pliny manuscripts assembled by Selatie Edgar Stout, 1871-1969, professor of Latin and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University.
The Poole mss. are a collection of 137 ancient, medieval and renaissance manuscripts and single leaves ranging from the 3rd to the 16th century. The collection was formed by George Amos Poole, 1907- , printer, of Chicago, whose interest was in the development of scripts which have had a direct influence on the design of Western printing types, rather than in illumination and decoration. Most of this material relates to religious matters.
The Ricketts mss., 9th-19th cent., are illuminated medieval and renaissance manuscripts assembled by Coella Lindsay Ricketts, 1859-1941, calligrapher, of Chicago, Illinois. Most of the material relates to religious matters.