The Munger Research Center


Thanks to a generous gift of $21 million from Los Angeles philanthropists Nancy and Charles Munger, the first expansion of the Library in more than 20 years was completed in July and opened to scholars in November of 2004. The 90,000-square-foot addition, located to the north and east of the Library's current research building, provides much-needed space for The Huntington's growing collections of rare books and manuscripts, as well as expanded facilities for scholarly studies, curatorial activities, conservation, education, information technology, and photography and digital imaging. Planning for the building began in 1997, with construction commencing in the late fall of 2002.

The Munger Research Center (MRC) will play a vital role in affirming founder Henry Huntington's central mission of creating and supporting one of the world's great centers for humanities research. More than 1,700 scholars use the Library's collections annually.

The building improves the research space provided for scholars, provides critically necessary space for the growth of the collections, and important space for the proper conservation of the collections. Having exceeded capacity, The Huntington for years has had to store some of its collections off-site. These collections are now reunited in the storage area of the MRC.

The Munger Research Center increases present facilities for researchers significantly, with 50 percent more space in a newly constituted Ahmanson Reading Room, where scholars use the Library's rare materials. Twenty-one offices double the capacity for long-term scholars on Huntington fellowships. Workspaces in the new building also have Internet connections for personal computers, giving scholars an array of access to the Huntington website, online catalogs, and other essential resources.

A large percentage of the space on the second floor of the MRC is devoted to the conservation laboratory, along with the photography studio and the exhibition preparations office. Together these offices and labs occupy almost 20,000 square feet - quadrupling the existing space of each functional area, and providing ample space for staff, interns, and state-of-the-art equipment. In the photography studio, the digital imaging laboratory has been expanded to meet this growing area of demand, as the Library makes more of its collections available in digital form on its own website and on a variety of databases.

The Seaver Education Center is also located in the Munger Research Center, providing three classrooms for research and education programs. The MRC also provides offices for the information technology staff, and the executive offices for the Huntington's President, Vice President for Advancement, Vice President for Financial Affairs, and their support staff.

The Earl Corporation of Pasadena designed and built the Munger Research Center. Bert England was the project's designer.