Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Cornell University Library began in 1865 as a modest collection of 18,000 volumes stored inside Morrill Hall. Andrew Dickson White served as the university's first president while Daniel Willard Fiske became its inaugural librarian.
Sixteen physical and virtual libraries exist across the main campus in Ithaca, New York alone. Separate branches serve Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and New York City while a storage annex handles overflow items.
One of only five copies of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address resides within these walls dated 1863. This specific copy remains privately owned yet accompanied by both a letter from Lincoln transmitting the manuscript and its original envelope addressed and franked by him.
Paul Ginsparg created arXiv.org e-print archive at Los Alamos National Laboratory before Cornell provided stewardship and partial funding. Physicists and mathematicians now communicate through this viable form announcing new research daily.
Timothy Murray founded Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art in 2002 as a research repository for emerging media practices. The archive sits within Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections and features works ranging from the 1960s up to present day.