Newberry Library

The Newberry Library is an independent research library concentrating in the humanities with an active educational and cultural presence in Chicago. FREE and open to the public, it houses an extensive non-circulating collection of rare books, maps, music, manuscripts, and other printed material.

The Newberry offers exhibits based on its outstanding collections, musical and theatrical performances, lectures and discussions with today's leading humanists, seminars, and teacher programs.

As one of the world's leading independent research libraries, the Newberry Library houses a collection that embraces the history and literature of the civilizations of Western Europe and the Americas from the Middle Ages through World War I.

For many fields, notably Chicago history, genealogy and local history, cartography, and printing, there are also rich sources from the 20th century. The collection numbers some 1.5 million books, five million manuscripts pages, and 500,000 historic maps.