While not actively seeking for rare editions and extraordinarily valuable items, our library owns a collection of books identified as rare due to age, historical significance, and/or vulnerability. The Library welcomes gifts to these collections but makes very few purchases to enlarge them. The rare books are kept in Special Collections in the Library Board Room, the Mission Room and in the library Salon. The materials are non-circulating; the permission to access the collection rests with the library staff.
As we review our Special Collection, we will be sharing some highlights here for you to explore.

The Acta Sanctorum - the largest critical collection of hagiographic texts. Arranged by liturgical feast day from January through November, it fills sixty-eight volumes published between 1643 and 1940. The work collects, edits, and annotates the primary sources for the lives of the saints: passions, vitae, miracle collections, translation accounts, and liturgical records, drawn from Latin, Greek, and vernacular manuscripts across Europe.
Three editions of Acta Sanctorum are known, and our collection has volumes of all three: 1) the original of the Bollandists, 2) the Venice edition (18th c.), and 3) the Paris edition (19th c.) Ioannes Bollandus, 1596–1665 published the first two volumes in 1643, with the assistance of Godefrid Henschenius. The work continued through successive generations of Jesuit scholars who came to be known as the Bollandists. This original edition is preferably to be cited in the academic work. The Venice and Paris editions were private undertakings.