Penn State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives

The Special Collections Library contains over 200,000 books as well as non-book items such as diaries, scrapbooks, and maps. These items can be found in the University Libraries Catalog.

We also house several thousand non-book collections. Collections might consist of the records of an organization, the collected papers of an individual, correspondence between family members, or a collector's systematic accumulation of material on a specific topic.

Collections are described in summary catalog records, but they are also described in more detail by finding aids. A finding aid contains information on the person or organization that created the records, the organization of the collection, and a folder listing.

Please note that some of our collections are housed offsite and require advance notification for retrieval.