The Newberry Library: A Million Books the Public Can Actually Read

At 60 W Walton Street in the Gold Coast neighborhood, the Newberry Library holds one of the most extraordinary collections of humanities materials in the world — and almost no one in Chicago knows it is open to the public. Founded in 1887 with a bequest from Chicago banker Walter Loomis Newberry, who died on a ship crossing the Atlantic and left half his fortune for a free public library, the Newberry holds approximately 1.5 million books and 5 million manuscript pages on the humanities of Western Europe and the Americas. Its particular strengths include cartography, indigenous American history, music history, and the history of printing. It holds one of the country's great map collections, including many original Native American land cession maps. Unlike a university library, the Newberry is open to any adult researcher, free of charge. The reading room, with long oak tables and high ceilings, is one of the finest research environments in the city. The Romanesque Revival building, completed in 1893, has carved stone doorways and stained glass. Free public exhibitions, lectures, and seminars run year-round.