The Special Collections Department is the home of the Idaho Collection, a collection of histories, biographies, government reports, reference books, and other works about Idaho, her people, and their culture. Standard as well as hard-to-find works, long out of print, are included. The Idaho Collection also contains fiction and poetry by Idaho authors. Idaho author Vardis Fisher is represented by a fine collection of autographed first editions. Other special book collections include books about the Idaho environment, the works of small presses in Idaho, and the de Groot collection of books about Ernest Hemingway.

The library's rare books are also located in the Special Collections Department. The oldest book in the Albertsons Library is an edition of the medieval work, Historia Scholastica, printed in Cologne, Germany, in 1479, not many years after the invention of the printing press. Once owned by the British bibliographer William Blades, this copy of Historia Scholastica contains handwritten marginalia recorded in Latin by some long-forgotten scholar centuries ago. The department is also home to a small collection of books from the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries representative of the history of bookmaking and a collection of artist's and eccentric books illustrating the contemporary book arts.

All books located in Special Collections are listed in the Library's computerized catalog.