Primary Sources: Special Collections

The principal repository at SMU for special collections in the humanities, the history of business, and the history of science and technology. Its rare books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, and other materials are available to all SMU students, faculty, visiting scholars, and other researchers.

Part of Hamon Arts Library, Bywaters houses performing arts and visual arts collections. Researchers wishing to visit Bywaters Special Collections are requested to make appointments in advance, explain their projects, and define their specific areas of interest so that the required materials can be assembled and the appropriate curator made available.

Focuses on incunabula, Bibles, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, devotional literature, church history, theology, popular devotion and popular piety, Wesleyana and Methodistica, and archival documents. Other resources cover topics including archaeology, literature, philosophy, politics, and the book arts (fine press imprints, artists’ books, livres d’artiste, and miniature books).