J. Willard Marriott Library - Collections

Collections

The library's Special Collections include the papers of Marriner Stoddard Eccles, Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1934 to 1938; David O. McKay, ninth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Leonidas Ralph Mecham, Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts from 1985 to 2006; and Wallace Stegner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1972.

The Special Collections Department contains the most diverse and valuable holdings of the University of Utah. The department collects and preserves materials that require unusual care or particular attention to their acquisition, processing, and patron use. Special Collections' purpose is to acquire and make available books, periodicals, documents, photographs, films, and original materials documenting the history of Utah, the Mormons, and the West, with the addition of the Middle East and the University of Utah. The mission of the Special Collections Department is twofold: to make these valuable and vital resources available to the public; and to ensure that the same resources are preserved for future generations. To meet the first part of this goal, the Department is committed to assisting patrons in using the collections, facilitating their research, offering advice on how to best accomplish their research, and promoting the collections and services of Special Collections. The Marriott Library is an open access library, which means that patrons are never denied access to materials, no matter what their status is.

The library hosts over 100 unique digital collections, many of which include items from Special Collections. Digital collections include the Mountain West Digital Library, USpace, Utah Digital Newspapers, the Western Soundscape Archive, and Western Waters Digital Library. The library provides access to print on demand books via the Espresso Book Machine.

The Aziz S. Atiya Library, which is located in the Marriott Library, is named after the founder of the Middle East Center, Aziz Suryal Atiya, and is the fifth largest library for Middle East studies in North America.