Our reading rooms are open by appointment only Mon-Fri, 9am-4pm. An appointment provides an opportunity to prepare materials in advance and make the best use of your visit.

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Cather Collections

Archives & Special Collections holds the largest collection of Willa Cather related materials in the world, with 14 collections of material related to Cather’s life, works, and scholarship. The Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection, one of the richest Cather collections in the repository, includes almost 400 letters written by Willa Cather to her family members and friends, as well as letters to Cather family members from Willa Cather’s partner of 40 years, Edith Lewis. Many of the collections include photographs, first editions and inscribed copies of Cather’s novels, and other Cather family materials that support research and scholarship through diverse and significant content.

Additional Resources:

The Willa Cather Archive, built in collaboration with Archives & Special Collections and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is a rich, useful, and widely-accessible digital site for the study of Cather's life and writings. The Willa Cather Archive provides digital editions of Cather letters, texts and scholarship free to the public, in addition to creating a large amount of unique, born-digital scholarly content.