Cushing Memorial Library and Archives

The Cushing Memorial Library and Archives is the rare books, special collections, manuscripts, and archival repository for Texas A&M University Libraries. The collections of the Cushing Library reflect the comprehensive nature of the educational and research enterprise at A&M as well as the wide diversity of interests found among current and former students, faculty, staff and friends. By preserving and making these collections accessible, the Cushing Library, like the University, seeks to promote intellectual inquiry, cultural enrichment, and the creation and dissemination research and new knowledge. The Library serves the students and faculty of Texas A&M as well as the community of scholarship, learning, and culture beyond the physical boundaries of the campus.

The collections span the breadth of recorded history, from Sumerian clay tablets dating from 2400 BCE to contemporary science fiction paperbacks. These collections comprise over 22,000 linear feet of manuscript and archival material, approximately 200,000 printed volumes, over 250,000 photographs, hundreds of original works of art ranging from oil paintings to pastels to sculpture, and many individual artifacts. The collections include works on paper, film, tape, CD, and other media. Collection strengths and interests of the Cushing Library include military history, science fiction, western Americana, 19th-century American prints and illustrators, modern politics, Texana, natural history, Africana, Hispanic studies, ornithology, nautical archaeology, 18th-century French history and culture, Mexican colonial history, the history of books and printing, the history of Texas A&M, and selected literary collections (including Miguel de Cervantes, John Donne, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, the Powys family, Christina Rossetti, and Walt Whitman) in addition to other subjects.