A white building with numerous pillars and a spanish tile roof with a green lawn in front.

Library

Once the personal library of railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington, The Huntington Library holds more than 11 million items spanning the 11th to 21st centuries.

These extraordinary and diverse materials are centered on 14 intersecting collection strengths. Exhibition halls showcase some of the most outstanding materials in the collection including iconic works like the Gutenberg Bible and Thoreau’s Walden manuscripts in the ongoing exhibition Remarkable Works, Remarkable Times.

Researchers from over 30 countries visit the Library’s reading rooms annually to study rare collections while thousands more make use of the Library’s virtual services and digital collections remotely.

Professional book, paper, and paintings conservators carry out thousands of hours of collections treatment and care annually for Library and Art collections.

Library Collections

All Collections
People sit at tables doing research in the Ahmanson Reading Room

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.

Learn More

Highlights from the Collections

Library News

  • The Huntington Acquires the Papers of Will Alexander

    poet will alexander

    The Huntington has acquired the papers of Will Alexander (b. 1948), a multimedia artist and award-winning writer. Alexander is the author of more than 30 collections of innovative, exploratory work that includes poetry, novels, essays, philosophy, aphorisms, and plays. His artistic productions also include drawings and piano compositions.

    More

  • Family Archive Related to Jane Austen

    molly letter related to Jane Austen

    In 1736, just four days before Christmas, 5-year-old Mary “Molly” Leigh wrote a formal letter to her father, Theophilus Leigh, Master of Balliol College, Oxford. The first page of the letter is ruled with straight lines to serve as guides for the novice hand, but the second page lacks them.

    More

  • Huntington Acquires Parkinson Archive

    john-parkinson-365x274

    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.

    More

Program Archive

  • Videos and Recorded Programs
    Collections up Close: The Digital Collection as a Tool for Close Examination
    Read more
  • Videos and Recorded Programs
    Cataloging in the Time of COVID
    Read more
  • Detail of bestiary
    Videos and Recorded Programs
    Capturing Bestiarium: The Art and Science of Digitization
    Read more
rare book opened to page of world map

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.
More