Independent Research Libraries Association

Members

American Antiquarian Society
American Philosophical Society
Boston Athenæum
The John Carter Brown Library
Canadian Centre for Architecture
The Folger Shakespeare Library
The Getty Research Library
The Hagley Museum and Library
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
The Library Company of Philadelphia
Linda Hall Library
Massachusetts Historical Society
The Morgan Library & Museum
The Newberry Library
The New York Academy of Medicine
The New-York Historical Society
The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations
Science History Institute
The Virginia Historical Society
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

Foreign Corresponding Members

Herzog August Bibliothek

Purpose

The Independent Research Libraries Association was established in 1972 in order to address the future of independent, privately-supported research libraries. From its inception, IRLA has dealt with common needs and aspirations -- how to preserve the precious cultural heritage represented in our vast collections, how best to serve the public and the world of scholarship, and how to finance and manage costly, fragile libraries that must survive largely without the security of public or university support.

Membership

Our nineteen member institutions have diverse origins, ranging from the eighteenth-century beginnings of the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society through the mid-twentieth century founding of the Linda Hall Library and the Hagley Museum and Library. Some, such as the The Morgan Library & Museum, the Huntington and Winterthur, include major museum collections. Several of the nation's oldest and most distinguished historical societies are IRLA libraries. Many, such as the Newberry, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the American Antiquarian Society, are national centers of scholarship in the humanities.

Three common threads unite IRLA's members, in effect comprising the criteria for membership:

our libraries house collections of national or international significance that are capable of supporting sustained research in a variety of interrelated subjects and of attracting scholars from all over the world;
they are organized as privately endowed, independent institutions, each with its own act of incorporation or charter, its own board of trustees, and a full-time professional chief executive officer;
their primary purposes are to collect and to make available the records of the past, to promote research in them, and to share those materials with scholars and the public.

For more information about membership, please contact Erik Rau, chair of the Nominating Committee at the Hagley Museum and Library. If you would like to know more about the needs and opportunities at the libraries in IRLA, please contact the current President of IRLA, Kathleen Salomon at the Getty Research Institute.

Research Centers

IRLA libraries have developed as centers for organized research and education. Scholars are served through fellowhips, seminars, conferences, institutes, as well as through such publications as catalogs, guides, monographs, journals, and books. Many collections are cataloged on nationally accessible computerized databases. The public is served through exhibitions, tours, lecture programs, classes, audio-visual and computer-based materials, and popularly oriented pamphlets, facsimiles, and books. Independent research libraries have become true intellectual communities.

Foreign Corresponding Member

In 1984 IRLA elected a Foreign Corresponding Member -- the renowned Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbuttel, Germany. The Herzog August Bibliothek originated as a ducal collection in 1572; by the seventeenth century its 130,000 items constituted the largest collection in Europe; today the Library contains approximately 800,000 volumes, most of them dating from before 1850. It includes many special collections, manuscripts, and documents in all areas of history and the humanities for the early modern period.

Independent research libraries are fragile treasure houses of our civilization. They represent vital elements in America's cultural heritage, and they make a unique contribution to the quality of American life.