25.0 Major Libraries
All figures of books owned are approximations, based on those published in The World of Learning, 46th ed. (London: Europa, 1996) and World Guide to Libraries, l2th ed. (Munich: Saur, 1995).
Note: The web-sites given are largely to enable catalogue access, although in some cases, catalogue access is not available. For an index of 17,000 libraries worldwide, see
http://www.libdex.com/
Canada
Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library: 1,500,079; fine art; theatre; Canadiana; Conan Doyle; Gay and Lesbian; Playpool (drama).
http://www.tpl.toronto.on.ca/ McGill University, Montreal: 2.7 million volumes; history of printing (Colgate Collection).
http://www.library.mcgill.ca/ McMaster University, Hamilton: 1,610,081; 18th century; Bertrand Russell; Samuel Beckett.
http://www.mcmaster.ca/library/ National Library of Canada, Ottawa: over 14,500,000 items; Canadiana (national union catalogue); copyright library.
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/index-e.html Queen's University, Kingston: 3,092,933; Canadiana; pre-1700 and rare books; John Buchan; fantasy.
http://library.queensu.ca/ Toronto Public: Osborne Collection of Children's Books (published catalogue); Judith Merril collection of science fiction.
http://www.tpl.toronto.on.ca University of British Columbia: 3,113,492; Canadiana; Victorian poetry (Colbeck Collection, published catalogue).
http://www.library.ubc.ca University of Toronto: 7,924,300; 1880-1920; Anglo-Irish; Shakespeare and Elizabethan London; Canadiana; Voltaire; Rousseau; history of science.
http://www.library.utoronto.ca Top of Page
U.S.
Brown University (rare books in John Carter Brown Library): 2,548,269; Americana; Harris Collection of American poetry.
http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library California, Berkeley: 7,697,027; published catalogue; Mark Twain.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu California, Los Angeles: 6,179,973; published catalogue; especially strong in 19th-century novels (Sadleir collection); includes the important separate Clark Library of books 1660-1740; fellowships.
http://www.library.ucla.edu Chicago, University of: over 5,700,000; Restoration plays.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/index.html Columbia: 6,600,000; history of printing.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb Cornell: 5,300,000; French Revolution; Wordsworth & Coleridge; Dreiser; F. M. Ford; Samuel Johnson; Joyce; Kipling; W. Lewis; Pope; Shaw.
http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/ Harvard (Widener Library; rare books & mss. in Houghton Library): 12,605,537; strong almost everywhere, especially Renaissance.
http://lib.harvard.edu University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) Library: 8,281,455, Shakespeare.
http://gateway.library.uiuc.edu Indiana (rare books in Lilly Library): 5,554,069 vols.; 6,705,432 manuscripts. http://www.indiana.edu/~iulfc/libraries
Kansas: 2,960,765; novels, science fiction
http://www.lib.ku.edu/ Library of Congress: 29,000,000; copyright library; published catalogues; National Union Catalog.
http://lcweb.loc.gov/ Michigan (rare books in Clements Library): 6,700,000; published catalogue; strong in plays, 1660-1800; Americana, including Faulkner and Frost; English and American Drama.
http://www.lib.umich.edu Minnesota: 5,176,536. Children's Literature; Literary manuscripts.
http://www.lib.umn.edu New York Public Library: 11,300,000; published catalogues; theatre & drama; Berg Collection (very rich in English literature of 19th & 20th centuries).
http://www.nypl.org State U of New York, Buffalo: modern mss., particularly poetry, but also James Joyce.
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries Princeton: 5,000,000; Americana, Victorian novels; theatre; Beardsley; Sylvia Beach and Win. Cowper collections.
http://libweb.princeton.edu Texas (rare books and mss. in Humanities Research Center): 6,835,983; 18th century and post-1850; very rich in modern literary mss. and printed books.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu Virginia: 4,000,000; novels (esp. Gothic); Victorian fiction; Americana; Faulkner; history of printing.
http://www.lib.virginia.edu Yale (rare books and mss. in Beinecke Library): 10,500,544; Centre for British Art (illustrated books); 18th century (James Boswell); 19th century (Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson).
http://www.library.yale.edu Top of Page
Public Research Libraries (U.S.)
See also Libraries on the Web: USA State for access to the USA state library system.
http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/usa-state.html Boston Public: 4,153,674; Americana; Defoe.
http://www.bpl.org Chicago Public: 4,764,000.
http://www.chipublib.org/cpl.html Cleveland Public: 2,768,414; folklore.
http://www.cpl.org Detroit Public: 2,655,156; Canadiana.
http://www.detroit.lib.mi.us Free Library of Philadelphia: 3,196,000; Americana; Dickens; Goldsmith; Poe; children's literature.
http://www.library.phila.gov Top of Page
Specialized Libraries (U.S.)
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.: published catalogue; Shakespeare; English Renaissance; Dryden; English plays, 1641-1700; British civilization, 1500-1700; fellowships.
http://shakespeare.folger.edu/ Huntington Library, San Marino [Los Angeles], California: 356,707 rare books; Medieval and Renaissance; illustrated books; English art; British drama; Western Americana; British and American history and literature generally; fellowships. Partly Catalogued under RLIN. [U of T Library Home Page; Resources; Other Library Catalogues]
http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=544&linkidentifier=id&itemid=544 Library Company of Philadelphia: esp. 1740-1870; Civil War.
http://www.librarycompany.org Metropolitan Museum, New York: published catalogue.
http://www.metmuseum.org/education/er_lib.asp Newberry Library, Chicago: over 1,400,000; Renaissance, 18th and 19th centuries; history of printing (published catalogue); fellowships.
http://www.newberry.org/ Pierpont Morgan Library, New York: English literature; illustrated books; Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts; printing, typography, and fine bindings; Dickens; Scott; Ruskin; The Brontes; Austen; Thoreau; Gilbert & Sullivan.
http://www.morganlibrary.org Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia: rarissima (Conrad, Dickens, Joyce mss.)
http://www.rosenbach.org/main.html Top of Page
Britain Bodleian Library (Oxford University): 6,000,000; copyright library; very strong in Elizabethan literature.
http://library.ox.ac.uk/ The British Library, Humanities and Social Sciences, London: over 13,000,000; published catalogue; copyright library; strong in all English periods, and many foreign. [U of T Library Home Page; UTL Catalogue; Resources; Other Library Catalogues]
http://blpc.bl.uk Cambridge University Library: 5,204,000; copyright library.
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Catalogues/OPAC John Rylands University Library of Manchester: 3,500,000; medieval.
http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/ National Art Library [Victoria and Albert Museum], London: 1,000,000 art and design; Dyce and Forster collections.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/nal/catalogues/index.html National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh: 6,000,000; copyright library; Scottish books and mss.
http://www.nls.uk/ Limited catalogue at
http://main-cat.nls.uk/ National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth: c. 5,000,000; Welsh copyright library; Welsh books and mss.
http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=2 University of London Library: over 1,700,000; education; magic; Elizabethan-Jacobean literature, esp. Shakespeare and Francis Bacon.
http://www.ull.ac.uk/ Top of Page
Ireland
National Library of Ireland, Dublin: c. 500,000; Irish books and mss.
http://www.nli.ie/en/homepage.aspx Trinity College, Dublin: 3,300,000; British copyright library; 18th century.
http://www.tcd.ie/Library/ Top of Page
Others Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence: 5,000,000.
http://www.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/ Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome: 4,500,000.
http://www.bncrm.librari.beniculturali.it Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire, Strasbourg, Section Sciences Humaines: 3,000,000.
http://www.bnu.fr/ Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: 9,000,000; copyright library; published catalogue.
http://www.bnf.fr Bibliothèques des Universités de Paris: over 9,260,000 (Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne: over 3,000,000). Access to each Parisian University Library Catalogue through
http://www.paris.fr/portail/loisirs/Portal.lut?page_id=8108 Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt-am-Main: 5,920,000; copyright library
http://www.d-nb.de/eng/index.htm Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg: c. 20,000,000. A disastrous fire in February, 1988, destroyed some 400,000 books, while many millions of others were damaged by water or are threatened by mould.
http://www.rsl.ru/en National Diet Library, Tokyo: 6,229,000; copyright library.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/index.html National Library of Australia, Canberra: 4,700,000; copyright library; published union catalogue of 18th-century books.
http://www.nla.gov.au /
National Library of China, Beijing: 15,980,636.
http://www.nlc.gov.cn/en/indexen.htm Russian State Library, Moscow (formerly the State V. I. Lenin Library): over 35,700,000; copyright library.
http://www.rsl.ru/en Turnbull Library, Wellington: 215,312; Milton; Katherine Mansfield.
http://www.natlib.govt.nz/atl Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin: 8,700,000.
http://www.sbb.spk-berlin.de Top of Page
Return to table of contents.
