The Nashville Room, Special Collections Division, which is located on the library's second floor, serves as a repository and research center for historic Nashville materials. The Division currently consists of the Nashville Room, the Civil Rights Room, the Nashville Banner Archives, and four Writer's Rooms. The Divisions Special Collections Center is scheduled to open in Fall 2006.

Nashville Room

The Nashville Room provides access to over 28,000 books relating to Nashville, Davidson County, and Middle Tennessee history and culture. These materials are available for browsing in open stacks but are non-circulating and must be used in the Nashville Room reading room.

Civil Rights

The Main Library's Civil Rights Room is housed in the Nashville Room's west wing. This space, which was opened to the public in 2003, features a permanent display of civil rights photographs from The Tennessean and Nashville Banner newspapers and a symbolic replica of the lunch counters from the sit-in movement. The room also houses a collection of non-circulating civil rights-related books.

Nashville Banner Archives

The Nashville Banner Archives, located in the Nashville Room's east wing, features a statue of a newsboy that once adorned the corner near the building occupied by that newspaper. The Division houses the newspaper's archives, and this room contains the Banner-Stahlman book collection.

Writer's Rooms

Located in the Nashville Room's east wing are four Writers Rooms: the Eskind Writer's Room, the Schweid/Mills Writer's Room, the Fred Russell and Robert Churchwell, Sr. Writer's Room, and the Jack Knox Writer's Room. These rooms are made available on an annual basis to Nashville writers via an application and selection committee process.
Writer's Room Application (MS Word)