Library

One of the world’s great independent research libraries, with some 12 million items spanning the 11th to the 21st centuries.

Every year, researchers from over 30 countries make more than 20,000 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 members 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 News

Stories from the Library

From the Gutenberg Bible to plans for the first Los Angeles skyscraper, from the everyday writings of Charlotte Brontë and Octavia E. Butler to an ink-blotted page of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography—this new exhibition series features both notable and unexpected collection materials in conversation with other works, many of which have never been exhibited before.

2025 Library Collectors’ Council Acquisitions

The Huntington has acquired six extraordinary collections through the generosity of the Library Collectors’ Council, a group that helps fund the purchase of new additions to the Library’s holdings.

Library Collections

All Collections

People sit at tables doing research in the Ahmanson Reading Room

Using the Library

Every year, researchers from over 30 countries make more than 20,000 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

Programs and Stories

About the Library

One of the world’s largest collections of British medieval manuscripts, including the 15th-century Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s 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.