The Doris Lewis Rare Book Room houses a sizeable special collection of rare materials related to the history of dance and ballet. The nucleus of the dance collection is the 150 items donated in 1975 by Dr. Henry Crapo, a former University of Waterloo faculty member. Dr. Crapo has continued to support the collection over the years.

Dr. Crapo's donation contains some rare and beautiful works on ballet: works by Negri, Caroso, Noverre, De la Cuisse, Arena, Dumanoir, Blasis and Bakst. The subject strengths of the collection reflect Dr. Crapo's interests in choreography and dance notation.

Of the seventeenth-century materials found here, some of the finest are Negri's Nuove inventioni de balli (Milan: 1604); Caroso's Nobilita di Dame (Venice: 1605), and Du Manoir's Le mariage de la musique avec la dance (1664).

The largest addition to the dance collection was the 300-volume collection acquired with the assistance of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant in 1982. This collection, with imprints ranging in date from 1687 to the mid-twentieth century, adds a new research dimension in the form of illustrated works containing lithographs and engravings of the period of the Romantic ballet. The provenance of the majority of works in this collection--a portion of the personal library of George Chaffee--a leading dance writer of the twentieth century, accounts in part for its strength. Many of the books Chaffee consulted in his research for his most famous writings on ballet are now a part of the Waterloo collections.

In 1985, another grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council made it possible for the Library to purchase over two dozen books supportive of the Crapo Collection.

Special Collections & Archives has prepared a digital exhibit featuring some of the items from the Henry H. Crapo Dance Collection.

Special Collections & Archives holds a variety of town guides from cities across the UK. Most significant urban centres in the British Isles are represented, and there is a comprehensive collection of guides to places which became Greater London in 1965.

The guides can provide a benchmark for assessing the very substantial changes which have affected British urban places in the past 60 years, and may be of interest to researchers in a variety of disciplines.

The town guides vary in size from a slender brochure of 30 pages for a small Urban District to large-format volumes of over 300 pages for a major City and County Borough such as Liverpool.

Three letters written by Marion Webster during her time as a missionary in Angola for the Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola. Her letters detail the history and geography of Angola, as well as activities undertaken by her. Also includes 5 envelopes from Marion Webster that do not correspondence with the letters.

Collection of coins ranging from the Persian Empire of the 6th century BCE to 19th century Britain. The coins reflect the development of the monetary systems, art, religion and shifting borders of the world. Also included are a coin weight and various electrotype coin reproductions.

This collection, donated to the University of Waterloo in 1988 by the family of the late Rosa Breithaupt Hewetson Clark and Spencer Clark, includes family papers from three families, the Breithaupt family, the Hewetson family, and the Clark family; records from the Guild of All Arts in Scarborough, Ontario, founded by Rosa Breithaupt Hewetson Clark and Spencer Clark; and several smaller collections acquired by the Breithaupt family and by Spencer Clark. The personal library of Spencer Clark, which includes many books, periodicals, government documents, and ephemeral items, was donated together with the archival collections, and is particularly strong in the fields of urban planning, architecture, and Canadian art.

Southey's version of nursery rhyme, presented as a holograph poem in a letter to his brother, Captain Thomas Southey, St. Helen's, Auckland, New Zealand. Signed with Southey's initials.

Culinary and medicinal manuscript household recipe notebook including recipes for food (such as jelly and lemonade), medicinal remedies (such as an earache cure and a cough syrup), and household remedies (such as furniture cream and cement).
Contents are divided into sections. First 25 pages are not numbered and include lists of contents. Pages 1 to 73 are numbered and contain culinary recipes, medicinal remedies, and household remedies. Pages 74 to 108 are numbered and left blank with a few pencil-written sums and calculations. Pages 109 to 112 were numbered and are missing. Pages 113 to 115 are numbered and contain culinary recipes and household remedies.
Includes unbound pages with recipes inserted in the book.
Script is in black, blue, and red ink and graphite pencil.

Materials relating to the professional life of Michael Bird. Covers his time teaching at Renison University College, as well as his research and publications on folk art, fraktur, religious imagery and film.