Significant additions to the original natural history collection in the South Carolina College library include:
- the Robert B. Ariail Collection of Historical Astronomy encompasses both historic telescopes and astronomical instruments, at the S.C. State Museum, and more than 5,000 rare books and other published items, housed in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
- the Richard Wingate Lloyd Collection of Early Botany
- eighteenth century watercolors donated by Ethelind Pope Brown
- the John Abbot Watercolors
- the Thomas Cooper Collection of Early Geology
- Charles Babbage - The Calculating Engine in the South Carolina
College Library - the John James Audubon Collection, including Birds of America(1828-38), purchased for the College by the legislature, theQuadrupeds, and additional prints donated by Jennie Haddock Feagle
- the Phelps Memorial Collection of Garden Books, including Catesby's Natural history of Carolina (1771)
- The Culture of Camellias : an exhibition chiefly from the Phelps Memorial Collection
- the George H. Bunch Medical History Collection
- the C. Warren Irvin, Jr., Collection of Charles Darwin and Darwiniana, including The Origin of Species (1859)
- Henry William Ravenel (1814-1887)
This library is a congressionaly designated depository for U.S. government documents. Public access to the government documents collections is guaranteed by public law.