Who can use Smithsonian library collections?
How are the Libraries arranged?
How can I find library staff?
What services are offered?
What kinds of information are available in the branch libraries?
When are libraries open?
Where are libraries and special collections located?
Can the libraries accommodate special needs?

Who can use Smithsonian library collections?
Smithsonian staff, visiting researchers, and the public may visit individual libraries in person, or search the Smithsonian Libraries' collections on the World Wide Web. The library's catalog, Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS), www.siris.si.edu, can be searched by author names, subjects, or titles. Smithsonian titles can be borrowed through interlibrary loan.
In addition, Smithsonian branch libraries have created Library Home Pages that describe subject-specific information resources. Hundreds of visiting scholars use the library annually. For the year 2000 alone, branch staff handled more than 91,700 reference transactions from library users around the country.

How is Smithsonian Institution Libraries arranged?
Forming a vital part of the research, exhibition, and educational endeavors of the world's largest museum complex, the libraries consist of 20 branch libraries located in the museums and research areas they support. The library collections are fully searchable using an online catalog of the combined collections. Smithsonian Institution Libraries serves as both academic and public library, scholarly resource, and general information service.

How can I find individual staff names?
You can search employee names, using the SIL Staff Telephone List. However, if you need to find someone by job responsibility, check individual library pages for their employees. And to locate employees in Smithsonian Institution Libraries' centralized departments, click here.

What services are offered?
Smithsonian Institution Libraries offers its treasures, and the help of informed staff, to Smithsonian employees, outside scholars, and visitors via on-site access to the collections, a public website, and a rich and varied schedule of book exhibitions, public programs, symposia, lectures, and special events. The Libraries sponsor resident scholars and provide training for interns and professional librarians. The Galaxy of Knowledge at www.sil.si.edu features full-text works of value to the research community worldwide. Online exhibitions adapted from displays in the Libraries' Exhibition Gallery (in the National Museum of American History) are seen on the website, along with online editions of its newsletter issues. Smithsonian Institution Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries and the Chesapeake Information and Research Library Alliance.

In addition to branch collections and online access by author, subject, and title, Smithsonian Institution Libraries includes several Special Collections. Special Collections include books, journals, pamphlets, manuscripts, maps, prints, medals, other objects, and the surviving volumes of James Smithson's personal library. Because of their rarity, cost, beauty, unusual content, form, or physical condition, these works demand the best possible storage environment and the highest security. The Special Collections Department contains 40,000 rare and valuable volumes and 2,000 manuscript groups, the majority dating from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Another collection is materials for world's fairs and international expositions, along with publications documenting the fairs (1851 to 1920). The department also holds the "Smithsoniana Collection" of books by and about the Smithsonian Institution from its creation in 1846. The collections are currently housed at:

• Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, in National Museum of American History,
  
• Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, in National Museum of Natural History,
  
• Admiral Dewitt Clinton Ramsey Room, in National Air and Space Museum, and
  
• Thomas A. Bradley Room in the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum.

What kinds of information are available in the branch libraries?
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries' collections of 1.5 million volumes, with 40,000 rare books, are especially strong in most of the Institution's historical disciplines, including:

• African art,
• African American history and culture,
• American art,
• American history,
• Anthropology, Asian and Middle Eastern art,
• Art, both modern and contemporary,
  
• Aviation history and space flight,
  
• Design and decorative arts,
  
• Environmental management and ecology,
  
• History of science and technology,
  
• Latino history and culture,
  
• Materials research,
  
• Museology,
  
• Native American history and culture,
  
• Natural history,
  
• Postal history, and
  
• tropical biology.
  

In addition, Smithsonian has a distinguished collection of manufacturers' trade literature (300,000 pieces for 30,000 companies), and world's fairs materials.

When are the libraries open?
Please consult the individual library home pages for hours, locations, and phone numbers.

Where are the libraries located?
The Director's Office and four centralized departments of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries are located at 10th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20560-0154, in the National Museum of Natural History. On the other hand, 20 branches of the Smithsonian Libraries are located in the Washington, DC area, in Suitland and Edgewater, Maryland, in New York City, and in the Republic of Panama. For exact locations, consult the Library Home Pages. Generally, libraries are located within the Museums they serve.

What accommodations are available for patrons with special needs?
The Libraries can make accommodations with advance notice. All Washington, D.C. branch libraries are wheelchair accessible, as is the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Branch in New York, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Branch in Panama. However, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) branch library in Edgewater, Maryland, is not. Therefore, call ahead, and the SERC Branch Librarian will work with disabled users to provide library services.