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Research Center Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room

Finding Aids

Some the Special Collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division are best organized through Encoded Archival Description or commonly called finding aids. 

A finding aid is a description of an archival collection, usually containing a history of the person or organization that produced the collection and an inventory of its contents. 

When browsing this list of finding aids, please select “outline view” to retrieve a table of contents list links to a view which displays a navigation frame with individual sections of the finding aid; the sections may be searched and printed separately. This view will load quickly. You may select “full view” to view a single file which may be used for printing or searching within the entire finding aid, or if you encounter difficulty in using frames. A lengthy finding aid may load very slowly in full view. Additionally, you may select “PDF” to view and print the finding aid using Adobe Portable Document external link format.

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Location

Library of Congress
10 First Street, SE
Thomas Jefferson Building, LJ 239
Washington, DC 20540-4810
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Hours

Public Hours
Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Final book requests at 4:15pm
Closed Weekends & Federal Holidays