Newberry Library

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Newberry Library

Newberry Library from Washington Square Park

The Newberry Library is a research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois, established in 1887 by a bequest by Walter Loomis Newberry. The building was designed by Henry Ives Cobb (1859-1931). It is located at 60 West Walton Street across from Washington Square Park.

Although it is a private, non-circulating library, it is free and open to the public. The Library houses more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages, and 500,000 historic maps. Collection strengths include materials on the Renaissance, genealogy, American Indians, early music, cartography, the history of printing, Chicago history, railroad archives, Luso-Brazilian history, and Midwestern authors' manuscripts. Their manuscript holdings include work by Mike Royko and Ben Hecht. Among its most valuable works is a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio and Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Federalist Papers.

The Library also offers teacher programs, seminars, programming and exhibits.

The Library was the primary institution responsible for the production of the 2004 Encyclopedia of Chicago, a landmark single-volume work that covered Chicago's history from 1630 to 2000.

The library was greatly expanded under the leadership of president Lawrence William "Bill" Towner between 1962 and 1986, during which time many important collections were acquired, a stacks building was constructed, and the library's emphasis was moved from the old world to the new, especially onto Native American and early North American settlers¹.

The Newberry Library was featured as the workplace of Henry Detamble, a main character in Audrey Niffenegger's novel "The Time Traveler's Wife"; many scenes in the book are set at the library, and (fictional) members of the library staff play a considerable role in the plot.

David Spadafora has been the president of the Library since 2005. Previously he served as president of Lake Forest College, where he also taught history. Spadafora holds a PhD in history from Yale University and a BA from Williams College.

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