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Carnegie Gallery 768x362
811 Mt Vernon Pl NW
Museums

DC History Center

Founded in 1894, the DC History Center deepens understanding of our city’s past to connect, empower, and inspire. As the only community-based nonprofit focused on the District’s history, our vision is to engage with neighborhoods across DC and elevate the stories of Washington’s diverse people, communities, and institutions.
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nmah sil 029 014 00
1332 Constitution Ave. NW
Libraries

National Museum of American History Library

As a premier American history collection and one of 21 libraries in the Smithsonian library system, the library supports research in the following areas: all areas of American history, including social, cultural, political, and economic events and development, along with their impact on everyday American life; advances in technology, including machinery and transportation; and scientific and medical history.
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loc interior
10 1st Street Southeast
Libraries

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.

The Library preserves and provides access to a rich, diverse, and enduring source of knowledge to inform, inspire, and engage you in your intellectual and creative endeavors. Whether you are new to the Library of Congress or an experienced researcher, our world-class staff is ready to assist you online and in person.
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nmafa sil7 50 04
950 Independence Ave SW
Libraries

Warren M. Robbins Library, National Museum of African Art

The Warren M. Robbins Library at the National Museum of African Art, founded in 1971, is the major resource center in the United States for the research and study of the visual arts of Africa. Its collection of more than 50,000 volumes covers all aspects of African visual arts, including sculpture, painting, printmaking, pottery, textiles, crafts, popular culture, photography, architecture, rock art, and archaeology. The African Art Library has significant supporting collections of African ethnography, musicology, performing arts, theater, cinema, oral traditions, religion, creative writing, and arts in the African Diaspora as well as general information on the history of African countries. The African Art Library has around 5,000 artists’ files on contemporary African artists and on topics relating to African art, culture and history. It also has small collections of artists’ books, videos, posters, and maps.
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cullman 39088003175973
National Museum of Natural History
Libraries

Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History

The Cullman Library holds the Smithsonian’s collection of rare books in anthropology and the natural sciences. Its world-class collection contains approximately 20,000 volumes published before 1840 in the fields of physical and cultural anthropology, ethnology, Native American linguistics, and archeology; botany; ornithology, mammalogy, herpetology, ichthyology, entomology, malacology, and other zoological fields; paleontology; and geology and mineralogy.
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zoo
3001 Connecticut Ave NW
Libraries

National Zoological Park Library

The evolution of the Libraries’ outreach at the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park (NZP) and Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) reflects how profoundly American zoos have changed in the last 50 years. What used to be called wildlife management is now conservation biology, and the traditional study of animals based on physical characteristics has evolved into an investigation based on genetic distinctiveness. As the care and study of wild animals become increasingly sophisticated, the Libraries’ expanding collections and evolving services are more critically needed than ever before.
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postal
2 Massachusetts Ave NE
Libraries

National Postal Museum Library

Your philatelic adventure starts here. The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum houses one of the largest and most significant philatelic and postal history collections in the world and one of the world’s most comprehensive library resources on philately and postal history. The Library has one of the world’s largest and most accessible collections of philatelic literature. The National Postal Museum is dedicated to the preservation, study and presentation of postal history and philately through stamps and objects. The Library supports the museum’s mission: Through the preservation and interpretation of our postal and philatelic collections, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum educates, challenges, and inspires its audiences on the breadth of American experiences.
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nmnh catalogueofcasts00ward
1010 Madison Dr NW
Libraries

National Museum of Natural History Library

The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Library consists of the main location (on the 1st floor and basement of the NMNH’s East Court) and 11 specialized collections throughout the NMNH building. These collections are in the NMNH Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, Vertebrate Zoology, Mineral Sciences, and Paleobiology departments. The NMNH Main Library and its satellite locations all have strong collections of 19th- and 20th-century literature (thanks in part to the gifts of early Smithsonian curators). Pre-1840 titles are accessible in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, part of the Special Collections Department, SIL.
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