t the center of research across the Smithsonian are the specialized branches and librarians of the Smithsonian Libraries.
The collections and staff of the Libraries play a key role in helping the Smithsonian’s research and curatorial staff make sense of the museums’ almost innumerable, often unique, objects and their cultural and historical contexts. The Smithsonian Libraries are a hidden national treasure, where experts come to test and expand knowledge and where America and the world can turn for authentic answers.People walking in the Natural History Library
The network of 20 specialized research libraries that make up the Smithsonian Libraries provide the Institution’s museums and research centers with resources and services that are as diverse and deep as the collections, exhibits, and scholarship they support. They truly span the range of scientific and cultural pursuits of humanity from aerospace, anthropology, and art history to business history and botany, cultural history, design, philately, zoology, and much, much more.
While sharing the values, methods, and efficiencies of a unified network, each library in the system supports the work of its own community of interest comprising specialized researchers and museum curators, as well as visiting scholars, educators, students, and others pursuing or advancing knowledge in their fields.