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 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.