The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute

Founded in 1951 as the Ohio State University Theatre Collection, the original Theatre Research Institute collection consisted of microfilm rather than original materials and engaged researchers in more than 100 European museums and libraries to compile bibliographies of rare theatrical material unique to their institutions. From the researchers' contributions and his own surveys, Dr. John McDowell, the Institute's founding director, built a collection of 450,000 frame microfilm archives of theatre history of the Western world -- from Medieval to Modern unduplicated anywhere in the United States containing copies of rare documents, promptbooks, posters, playbills, and costume and scene designs with especially strong holdings from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, England, and the United States.