Fales Library

The Fales Library & Special Collections serves as the repository for special collections materials in the Elmer Bobst Library at New York University and is committed to preserving the artistic expression of relevant cultural movements in their original formats, including books, manuscripts, archives, and other media. Fales complements the collection policies in the general stacks by supplying primary resources for scholarly research and by prospectively collecting works that will become important historical evidence, documenting the changes in expressive culture.
The Downtown Collection, which began in 1993, is such an attempt to document the downtown arts scene that evolved in SoHo and the Lower East Side during the 1970's through the early 1990's. The movement, taken as a whole, was very diverse, and its output includes literature, music, theater, performance, film, activism, dance, photography, video, and original art. The goal of the Downtown Collection is to comprehensively collect the full range of artistic practices and outputs, regardless of format. . This research collection, built on a documentary strategy, provides primary resources for scholars who are interested in the role of literature and the printed word-but also its necessary intersection with other forms of artistic expression-in the history and culture of downtown New York. Its goal is to document the downtown community, which NYU is associated with in common thought.