Independent Membership & Research Libraries: A-Z List

Located in Worcester, MA
The American Antiquarian Society is both a learned society and a major independent research library. Founded in 1812 by Revolutionary War patriot and printer Isaiah Thomas, the AAS library today houses the largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary texts, bibliographies, and digital resources and reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century. (source: website)

Located in Paris, FR
The American Library in Paris is the largest English-language lending library on the European continent. The Library’s 3,000 members representing 60 countries enjoy access to 100,000 books, current and historical periodicals, audio-visual materials, plus extensive reference and research resources in paper and electronic form. Its signature programming includes children’s and teen activities, evening speakers, and book groups – all in a newly-renovated space near the Eiffel Tower. (source: Website)
Membership Benefits.

Located in Philadelphia, PA
An eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, the American Philosophical Society promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, support of young scholars, publications, library resources, a museum and community outreach. This country's first learned society, the APS has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life for over 250 years. (source: website)

Located in Liverpool, UK
Founded in 1797, and in its current quarters since 1924, the Athenaeum provides members with an exceptional library and a collection of artwork and artifacts and offers extensive cultural and educational programming.

Located in La Jolla, CA
Describes itself as one of only 16 nonprofit membership libraries in the United States. This rare cultural institution, an important one to the greater San Diego area, offers a depth and accessibility of resources and programs found nowhere else in the region. (source: website)

Located in Philadelphia, PA
A library and museum, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia was founded in 1814 to collect materials "connected with the history and antiquities of America, and the useful arts, and generally to disseminate useful knowledge" for public benefit. Housed in a National Historic Landmark building, the library collection includes books, manuscripts, architectural drawings, photographs, and historic objects. The Athenaeum provides the Philadelphia region with a resource of first resort on matters of architecture and interior design history, particularly for the period 1800 to 1945. (source: website)

Located in Bath, UK
The Bath Literary and Scientific Institution (the 'Royal' part came later) was founded in 1824, but was a direct descendant of Bath societies going back to the 1770s. (source: website)

Located in Westmount, QC, Canada
Established in the Atwater Mechanics' Institute in 1828, and now with over 40,000 (mostly English language) titles, the Atwater library and computer learning center is a registered charity with a mission to foster learning and contribute to the development of the Montreal area community.

Located in London, UK
"Since 1895 we have been a home for ideas and debate, learning and enquiry; a place where culture, heritage and learning meet, and where independent thought is cherished." The Library includes important collections on the history of London and the labour, co-operative, freethought and humanist movement. (source: website)

Located in Boston, MA
Founded in 1807, the Boston Athenæum is one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries and cultural institutions in the United States.

Located in Bradford, UK
From its origins in 1832 to the present day, the Bradford Mechanics Institute has served the people of the City with educational, recreational and social activities. Today the Library is primarily a well-stocked subscription library with an expanding range of very active Interest Groups. (source: website)

Located in Nottingham, UK
Founded 1816 as the Nottingham Subscription Library, and relocated to its current location in 1822, Bromley House Library is a flourishing independent lending library situated in the centre of Nottingham, one of the few remaining subscription libraries in the country. (source: website)

Located in Montreal, QC, Canada
The Canadian Centre for Architecture is an international research institution based on the fundamental premise that architecture is a public concern. (source: website)

Located in New York, NY
Founded in 1820 as the Mercantile Library, the Center is the only nonprofit literary organization in the U.S. solely dedicated to celebrating fiction. The circulating library collection was begun by New York City merchants before the advent of the public library system. (source: website)

Located in Charleston, SC
The Charleston Library Society was formed in 1748 by nineteen young gentlemen of various trades and professions wishing to avail themselves of the latest publications from Great Britain. (source: website)

Located in Manchester, UK
Chetham’s Library was founded in 1653 and is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

Located in Washington, DC
Home to the world's largest Shakespeare collection and to major collections of other rare Renaissance books, manuscripts, and works of art, the Folger serves a wide audience of scholars, visitors, teachers, students, families, and theater- and concert-goers. (source: website)

Located in Seattle, WA
Folio is a gathering place for books and the people who love them. Devoted to the intellectually curious, Folio offers circulating collections, vibrant conversations, innovative cultural and civic programs, and work spaces for writers. (source: website)

"The collections of the Frick Art Reference Library relate mainly to paintings, drawings, sculpture, and prints from the fourth to the mid-twentieth centuries by European and American artists. (source: website)

Located in New York, NY
Founded in 1785 by the skilled craftsmen of the City (of New York). Today, this 231-year old organization continues to serve and improve the quality of life of the people of the City of New York through its educational, philanthropic and cultural programs including its tuition-free Mechanics Institute, The General Society Library and its nearly two-century old Lecture Series. (source: website)

Located in Los Angeles, CA
The Getty Research Institute library collections include over one million books, periodicals, study photographs, and auction catalogs as well as extensive special collections of rare and unique materials. Focusing on art history, architecture, and related fields, they begin with the archaeology of prehistory and extend to the contemporary moment.

Located in Wilmington, DE
Located on 235 acres along the banks of the Brandywine in Wilmington, Delaware, Hagley is the site of the gunpowder works founded by E. I. du Pont in 1802. This example of early American industry includes restored mills, a workers' community, and the ancestral home and gardens of the du Pont family. (source: website)

Located in Wolfenbüttel, Germany
Site produced in German and English. The physical library is not just a library and research centre for the medieval and early modern periods- it also houses a museum which presents its history and its holdings to the public. The museum rooms are located in the Bibliotheca Augusta and the Lessing House.

Located in Philadelphia, PA
One of the oldest historical societies in the United States, it is home to some 600,000 printed items and more than 21 million manuscript and graphic items. Its unparalleled collections encompass more than 350 years of America’s history—from its 17th-century origins to the contributions of its most recent immigrants.

Located in San Marino, CA
The Library’s collection of rare books and manuscripts in the fields of British and American history and literature is nothing short of extraordinary. For qualified scholars, The Huntington is one of the largest and most complete research libraries in the United States in its fields of specialization. The Art Collections are distinguished by their specialized character and elegant settings in three separate galleries on the Huntington grounds. The Botanical Gardens are an ever-changing exhibition of color and a constant delight. (source: website)

Located at Brown University, Providence, RI
The John Carter Brown Library is an independently administered and funded center for advanced research in history and the humanities, founded in 1846 and located at Brown University since 1901. Housed within the Library’s walls is an internationally renowned, constantly growing collection of primary historical sources pertaining to the Americas, both North and South, before ca. 1825. (source: website)

Located in Leeds, UK
The Leeds Library began life modestly in 1768 above a bookseller’s shop. The library is a membership organization with a wonderful collection of books and periodicals housed in a fine two hundred year-old building.

Located in Philadelphia, PA
The Library Company is America’s first successful lending library and oldest cultural institution. It was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a subscription library supported by its shareholders, as it is to this day.

Located in Kansas City, MO
The Linda Hall Library is the world’s foremost independent research library devoted to science, engineering, and technology. A not-for-profit, privately funded institution, the Library is open to the public free of charge. (source: website)

Located in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
The Library was created soon after the founding of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1793. The original emphasis was on lectures, discussion and experiments, and many of the works in the early library were scientific in nature. In 1825 the Lit & Phil moved into its present home, where the collection grew from 8,000 to more than 170,000 volumes. Novels were introduced to the collection in 1891.

Located in London, UK
The London Library, founded in 1841, is the UK's leading literary institution. Today, the Library’s collection stands at over 1,000,000 titles, covering over 2,000 subjects in 55 different languages. The books range in date from 1500, complemented by bound copies of over 2,000 periodicals dating from 1699 to today. (source: website)

"For generations, our staff, students, and volunteers have turned to this valuable resource with questions related to horticulture, botany, the allied arts, sciences, and Longwood's history." (source: website)

Located in Portland, ME
In 1815, the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association was the fellowship for Portland’s creative community: the blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters, and more. Our mission is to inspire and enrich the community by promoting ingenuity, creativity, innovation and the diffusion of useful knowledge. (source: website)

Located in Boston, MA
Founded in 1791, the Massachusetts Historical Society is an invaluable resource for American history, life, and culture. Its extraordinary collections tell the story of America through millions of rare and unique documents, artifacts, and irreplaceable national treasures. As the nation’s first historical society, the MHS strives to enhance the understanding of our nation’s past and its connection to the present, demonstrating that history is not just a series of events that happened to individuals long ago but is integral to the fabric of our daily lives. (source: website)

Located in San Francisco, CA
The Mechanics' Institute is a leading cultural center that includes a vibrant library, a world-renowned chess program and a full calendar of engaging cultural events. Founded in 1854 to serve the educational and social needs of mechanics — artisans, craftsmen, and inventors — and their families, the Institute today is a favorite of avid readers, writers, downtown employees, chess players, and the 21st century nomadic workers. (source: website)

Located in Melbourne, Australia
The Melbourne Athenaeum was founded in 1839 as the Melbourne Mechanics' Institution. Its purpose was "the diffusion of literary, scientific and other useful knowledge to members and the general public" and this was achieved by maintaining a library, museum and reading room, and offering classes and lectures. Providing members with access to a hand-picked collection of books and reading material, the library has made a significant contribution to the cultural fabric of Melbourne over its 175-year history. Today it offers the latest in books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, audio books and eBooks in a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere. (source: website)

Located in Cincinnati, OH
On April 18th, 1835, forty-five merchants and clerks from boomtown Cincinnati came together to create the Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association. To fulfill its initial mission, the Library maintains and expands its historic collection of books while presenting an expansive schedule of events. The collection contains over 80,000 volumes, and covers a broad range of subjects, including contemporary fiction, non-fiction, classics, history, poetry, travel, and more. (source: website)

Located in New York, NY
Beginning as the private library of financier J.P. Morgan, the library was built between 1902 and 1906 adjacent to his New York residence. In 1924, 11 years after Morgan's death, in what constituted one of the most momentous cultural gifts in U.S. history, his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867–1943), known as Jack, fulfilled his father's dream of making the library and its treasures available to scholars and the public alike by transforming it into a public institution. (source: website)

Located in the Morrab Gardens, Penzance, UK
The Morrab Library is an independent library established in 1818, housed in a Victorian mansion in the beautiful Morrab Gardens in Penzance, Cornwall. We hold over 55,000 books on floor-to-ceiling shelves as well as archives and a rich photographic collection. The collection is strong in literature, history, biography, antiquities, topography and travel and religion. Also included are: extensive runs of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century periodicals; a centre for Celtic studies; and a collection of 3,000 Napoleonic memorabilia, which has been described as “the only great Napoleonic collection in the world.” (source: website)

Located in New York, NY
The New-York Historical Society, one of America’s pre-eminent cultural institutions, is dedicated to fostering research, presenting history and art exhibitions, and public programs that reveal the dynamism of history and its influence on the world of today. Founded in 1804, the New-York Historical Society’s museum is the oldest in New York City. Its art holdings comprise more than 1.6 million works from colonial period to the current era. The Library is one of the oldest and most distinguished in the United States, containing more than three million books, pamphlets, maps, atlases, newspapers, broadsides, music sheets, manuscripts, prints, photographs and architectural drawings. (source: website)

Located in Chicago, IL
Established in 1887, the Newberry is a world-renowned independent research library in Chicago dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge, especially in the humanities. The Newberry acquires and preserves a broad array of special collections research materials relating to the civilizations of Europe and the Americas. It offers readers an extensive noncirculating collection of rare books, maps, music, manuscripts, and other printed material spanning six centuries. Newberry staff provides award-winning service and supports a rich array of programmatic opportunities. (source: website)

Located in New York, NY
Since our founding in 1847, the Academy has a legacy of over 160 years of pioneering progress in urban health—making a lasting impact on health in New York City and beyond. (source: website)

Located in Portsmouth, NH
A non-profit membership library and museum, incorporated in 1817, for the mutual edification of their members and to elevate the educational resources available in the community. The Athenæum Library reflects the broad range of interests of educated nineteenth century Portsmouth citizens, including science and technology, history and exploration, theology, biography, navigation and maritime history, law, and arts and architecture. The personal libraries of two men, Benjamin Tredick (1802-77) and Charles Levi Woodbury (1820-98), are maintained intact in special alcoves and several other early bequests of rare books are preserved in the collection. The library continues to acquire both new and old books in a wide variety of subjects of interest to its members. A special emphasis is made on collecting Portsmouth imprints and works relevant to the study of the region's history. The Athenaeum also collects, preserves, and makes available photographs and manuscripts related to the history of the Seacoast Region of New Hampshire. The archives contain nearly 100 large manuscript collections, nearly 1000 single items and small collection manuscripts, and over 12000 photographs. (source: website)

Located in Providence, RI
The Providence Athenæum as we know it was founded and incorporated in 1836 after a previous Providence Athenæum (est. 1831) and the Providence Library Company (est. 1753) could not agree on terms for a merger. Both organizations dissolved and formed a new library, which included the collections of both earlier institutions. Over its nearly 200 years of existence, the library has welcomed illustrious writers, spirited thinkers, and energetic community members through its doors to engage in reading, conversation, and debate. At its heart, the Athenæum encourages a love of reading and learning to all. (source: website)

Located in Newport, RI
The Redwood Library and Athenæum is the oldest lending library in America, and the oldest library building in continuous use in the country. Founded in 1747 by forty-six proprietors upon the principle of "having nothing in view but the good of mankind," its mission continues over 250 years later. (source: website)

Located in Salem, MA
Salem Athenæum’s charter and name date from 1810, but its history actually begins fifty years earlier with the founding of two earlier institutions: the Social Library in 1760 and the Salem Philosophical Library in 1781. By 1810, many of the members of the Social Library also belonged to the Philosophical Library, and the two bodies were merged to create the Salem Athenæum. (source: website)

Located in St. Johnsbury, VT
The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum was founded by Horace Fairbanks in 1871 as a culture center for the town - a true "athenaeum," providing a free public library and art gallery, as well as a host for numerous educational events. The library’s book collection, originally consisting of 8,000 finely bound volumes selected with the advice of the noted bibliographer W.F. Poole, has been expanded to include nearly 45,000 volumes. In addition to physical books, the library has magazines, newspapers, DVD movies, CD audio books, e-books and audio books online, a complete set of the local newspaper on microfilm, pamphlets and paperbacks. Time magazine noted in 1965 that the St. Johnsbury Athenæum Art Gallery is “the United States’ oldest unaltered art gallery still standing.” (source: website)

Located in St. Louis, MO
Established in 1846 by civic leaders and philanthropists, the Mercantile exists today as a vibrant community and cultural asset. It is the oldest library west of the Mississippi. The task of the Mercantile Library as a research library is to make its collections, which have come to concentrate on Western Expansion and the history, development, and growth of the St. Louis region and of the American rail and river transportation experiences, available to the widest number of local and national users. (source: website)

Located in Richmond, VA
The Virginia Historical Society (VHS) was founded in 1831, making it the fourth-oldest such institution in the nation. It has operated without interruption for more than 180 years, which makes it the oldest cultural institution in the Old Dominion. The VHS is the only organization dedicated to collecting and interpreting all of Virginia’s history—all areas, all time periods, and all people. (source: website)

Located in Winterthur, DE
"Founded by Henry Francis du Pont, Winterthur is the premier museum of American decorative arts from early America. Its 60-acre naturalistic garden is among the country’s best, and its research library serves scholars from around the world. We invite you to visit and explore this place of beauty, history, and learning." (source: website)

Located in New Haven, CT
The Young Men's Institute is Connecticut's oldest independent circulating library and one of the last remaining membership libraries in North America. Founded in 1826, the Institute Library provides quiet reading areas, a large circulating collection of up-to-date literature, unique programming and rich opportunities to engage with members and the surrounding neighborhoods of downtown New Haven. (source: website)