Since 2007, students from Columbia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Journalism, and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation have processed approximately 2,593 linear feet of previously inaccessible collections, making Columbia's "hidden collections" available for research.
The exhibition features material from over 25 collections from the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, and the RBML including architectural drawings, photographs, photograph albums, correspondence, manuscripts and ephemera. Among the objects on display is a rare and beautiful autochrome diascope from the Plimpton Family Papers; a sketch of a defense plan to protect missionaries and Chinese Christians during the Boxer Rebellion from the Tewksbury Papers; costume designs from the H. Lawrence Freeman Papers; correspondence regarding a New York City child sent west on the orphan trains from the New York Juvenile Asylum Records; a family photo of Hettie Jones and LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka from the Hettie Jones Papers; artwork from The New Leader Records; and a photo of Herbert Matthews receiving an award from Fidel Castro from the Herbert L. Matthews Papers.