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Library

The Huntington Library is one of the world's great independent research libraries, with more than eleven million items spanning the 11th to 21st centuries.

Every year, researchers from over 30 countries make over 20,000 research visits to the Library's reading rooms, and thousands more remote researchers make use of the Library's virtual services and digital collections. Some 75 Library staff play a critical role in cultivating and expanding access to the collections, creating new opportunities for discovery and engagement, and ensuring that collections are preserved for the future.

Library Collections

All Collections
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Using the Library

Every year, researchers from more than 30 countries make over 20,000 research visits to the Library's reading rooms, and thousands more make use of the Library's virtual services and digital collections.

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Highlights from the Collections

Library News

A Founding Document

text on old manuscript

In September 1758, the 62-year-old Lt. Col. Conrad Weiser (1696–1760), a veteran Indian interpreter, recorded a speech delivered by a man whose name he rendered as Ackowano Thio, or Ackowanothio. The original record of the speech is now on display in the Library’s Main Exhibition Hall, next to a rare printing of the Declaration of Independence.

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What Is the Future of Shakespeare?

drawing of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare remained the most produced playwright in the world in 2022, but will he maintain that status by 2050? While major research libraries continue to build their collections around their Shakespearean holdings, the purpose of the research library is in flux.

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Huntington Acquires Parkinson Archive

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The Huntington has acquired the archive of notable early 20th-century Los Angeles architects John and Donald Parkinson. The little-known cache contains more than 20,000 items, including drawings, blueprints, office records, photographs, and ephemera.

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Program Archive

  • Alice and Charlotte Ah Tye pose for the camera.
    Videos and Recorded Programs
    Underrepresented Voices in the Archive
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  • screenshot of four people on zoom
    Videos and Recorded Programs
    What Does The Huntington Have For Me? A Conversation with Huntington Curators
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  • Detail of bestiary
    Videos and Recorded Programs
    Capturing Bestiarium: The Art and Science of Digitization
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  • A pencil sketch of Los Angeles City Hall on yellow grid paper.
    Videos and Recorded Programs
    A Biography in Blueprint (The John and Donald Parkinson Collection)
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About The Library

  • One of the world’s largest collections of British medieval manuscripts, including the 15th-century Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
  • One of 12 surviving copies on vellum of the Gutenberg Bible, the jewel of the second-largest collection of incunabula (15th-century printed books) in the United States.
  • A leading repository for Americana, including extensive holdings for Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson, and such gems as the original manuscript of Franklin’s autobiography.
  • Extensive collections on the American West, including the great 19th-century photographic surveys and original sources about overland migration, industry and transport, and Native Americans.
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