Museum Support Center Library
4210 Silver Hill Road, MSC Rm. C-2000
Suitland, Maryland 20746-2863
Telephone: 301.238.1030 | Fax: 301.238.3661
email: libmail@si.edu

About the Library

The Museum Support Center Library is one of 20 branch libraries in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries system. It serves the research needs of all staff at the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center (MSC) in Suitland, Maryland.

The Museum Support Center is a museum collections management facility designed for the purposes of collections storage, research, and conservation. One of the first such facilities in the world of its kind, the MSC was dedicated in May 1983. The facility covers 4 ½ acres of land and contains over half a million square feet of space. Located in Silver Hill, Maryland, 6 miles southeast from the Smithsonian Museums on the mall, this unique zigzag shaped building incorporates the latest in museum technology.

• View "An Introduction to the Museum Support Center" (1988) video (Quicktime: Bandwith High - Medium - Low - Modem)

In its laboratory and office areas, the MSC houses the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE), the Laboratories of Analytical Biology (LAB) and conservation laboratories for the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), National Portrait Gallery (NPG) and the National Museum of Natural History's Department of Anthropology. The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) and the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit (WRBU) are also located at MSC. In addition, other departments from the National Museum of Natural History maintain storage and laboratory facilities at MSC.