PGK Art: Schaffer Library at Union College. Schaffer Library houses some 550,000 volumes, including nearly all of the materials purchased to create the first College library in 1795. “First Purchase” books are housed in the library’s Special Collections, which also contains many other treasures added to the library’s collections over the years. Among the College’s most prized possessions kept in Special Collections are an elephant folio edition of Audubon’s Birds of America, which the College purchased directly from the artist; the original Ramée drawings for the campus; the Trianon editions of William Blake’s works; the original College charter.