Smithsonian Institution Libraries - Collections and Libraries - General Collections Libraries, With Their Subject Specialties

General Collections Libraries, With Their Subject Specialties

Most of the Smithsonian Libraries are located in the Washington, D.C., area, where most of the Smithsonian Institution's museums and research centers are. Other locations include New York City, Suitland, Md., Edgewater, Md., and the Republic of Panama.C

• American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery Library / Renwick Gallery Library (Washington, D.C.)

American art, portraiture, American history and biography, and American crafts.

• Anacostia Community Museum Library (Washington, D.C.)

Supports work on history and culture of the African diaspora in the DC area and more broadly in the Western hemisphere. Subjects include Upper South, African American women, slavery and abolitionism, and religion and the African American community. It houses some library materials from the National Museum of African American History and Culture while the museum is under construction.

• Botany and Horticulture Library (National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.)

Plant systematics, botanical history, ethnobotany, botanical art/design/illustration, floriculture, arboriculture, integrated pest management, gardening, plantscaping, etc.

• Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library (New York, New York)

Design and decorative art from the Renaissance to the present.

• Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Library (Washington, D.C.)

Artistic traditions/cultures of the peoples of Asia. Chinese and Japanese art represent about half of the collection.

• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library (Washington, D.C.)

Modern and contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, video, and emerging art forms.

• John Wesley Powell Library of Anthropology (National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.)

Physical anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, forensic science, area studies.

• Museum Studies Reference Library (Washington, D.C.)

• Museum Support Center Library (Suitland, MD)

Collections storage, research, and conservation.

• National Air and Space Museum Library (Washington, D.C.)

Space and aviation history, air transport, astronomy/astrophysics, terrestrial and exogeology, remote sensing, spacecraft design and instrumentation, etc.

• National Museum of American History Library (Washington, D.C.)

History of technology, all aspects of American history--social, cultural, political, and economic, history of everyday American life, etc.

• National Museum of Natural History Library (Washington, D.C.)

General science, biology, ecology, evolution, biodiversity, geology, paleontology, conservation, etc. Includes sub-branches/satellite libraries in Invertebrate and Vertebrate Zoology, Mineral Sciences, Paleobiology.

• National Postal Museum Library (Washington, D.C.)

Postal and philatelic history.

• National Zoological Park Library (Washington, D.C. and Front Royal, VA)

Veterinary medicine, pathology, genetics, nutrition, behavior, husbandry, wildlife conservation, biodiversity, zoo and aquarium horticulture.

• Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Library (Edgewater, Maryland)

Global change, population and community ecology, coastal ecosystems. Emphasis on Chesapeake Bay area.

• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library (Republic of Panama)

Tropical biology, ecology, conservation, pharmacognosy, ecotourism, etc. Main site is in Panama City; branches in research stations on Barro Colorado Island on Gatun Lake, and on Colón Island, Bocas del Toro Province.

• Vine Deloria, Jr. Library, National Museum of the American Indian, (Suitland, Maryland)

All aspects of American Indian history and cultures, including architecture, health, law, education, music, dancing, religion, languages and literatures, Pow-wows, etc.

• Warren M. Robbins Library, National Museum of African Art (Washington, DC)

African visual arts, including architecture, painting, sculpture, prints, pottery, textiles, popular culture, photography, rock art.