Collections
About Our Collections
The Libraries' physical collections comprise 1.5 million books and manuscripts, along with over 400,000 pieces of ephemera, microfilm, photo collections and a/v material, housed in over 20 locations in Washington, Maryland, New York, and Panama. Some of those collections are available via inter-library loan request through your local public, school, or organizational library. If you're with an organization interested in using one of our collections items in an exhibition, please see Exhibition Loan Services.
Our digital collections include over 27,000 digitized books and manuscripts (available on our site and at the Biodiversity Heritage Library) as well as photo and illustration collections, seed catalogs, trade literature, and much more.