State Library

The primary role of the State Library of Pennsylvania is to collect, preserve, and provide access to materials for, by, and about Pennsylvania for the information and research needs of all branches of state government, libraries, and the public. The State Library’s collection consists of more than one million print volumes, newspapers, and Pennsylvania and U.S. government documents. This unique and rare collection includes the original Assembly Collection, a collection of colonial imprints dating from 1745, and the largest collection of historic Pennsylvania newspapers in the world. The State Library also provides access to electronic resources to support state government, serves as one of four Statewide Resource Centers in the Commonwealth, and offers rapid access to the collections of other major research and academic libraries of Pennsylvania and worldwide.