Collections
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives holds more than one million volumes and over 6,000 archival collections that document war, revolution, and peace and social, political, and economic change that shaped our world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Search Our Collections
Our collections contain rare and unique library materials and archives that include posters, photographs, texts, sound recordings, moving images, and art and memorabilia.
Documenting war, revolution, and peace, along with political, social, and economic change in the modern era, our collections come from across the globe and in many formats and languages. Search and discover rare materials from all political persuasions which highlight a spectrum of voices and experiences that shaped the 20th and 21st centuries. Personal papers form the bulk of our collections, however we also have extensive photographica, digital records, rare publications, and other formats spanning roughly 30 miles of shelving and evergrowing terabytes of data.
Collecting Areas
Our curators oversee and actively acquire collections which currently originate from 171 countries.
Featured News
News
Hoover Acquires Rare Collections on Eastern European Guerrilla Movements During the Second World War
Two collections documenting partisan and guerrilla activity in Eastern Europe during the final years of World War II are now at Hoover. Together, these materials shed new light on how local fighters resisted Axis forces and how their experiences were recorded, remembered, and contested in the historical record.
News
Library & Archives Intern Reflects On How "It Is Incredibly Gratifying To Be Part Of An Institution That Offers Free Public Access"
Jenna Mollerus was a part of the 2025 Summer Internship cohort at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives and specialized in Research Services. She shared what the experience in this "dynamic role" meant to her in a recent interview.
Hoover Acquires Collection Of Colonel Jack T. Young, A Legendary Explorer, Soldier, And Diplomat
The collection follows Young’s extraordinary path of service from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese government to the United States and broadens our knowledge about China before the 1949 divide and beyond.
News
Newly Cataloged Library Materials Summer 2025
Illustrations detailing How to Defeat the Enemy; background on the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963; poems from a Soviet perspective; and a Japanese -language transcription of a Romanian POW's diary from World War I are among the newly cataloged items from our collections. Reserve a seat in the Reading Room to view them.
News
Hoover Hosts Annual Summer Workshop on Modern China and Taiwan
The annual Hoover Institution Workshop on Modern China and Taiwan took place from July 28–August 1, 2025. The workshop featured experts who explored the Hoover Library & Archives’ historic holdings on China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
News
Hoover Preserves Rare, Reformatted Footage Of The First Atomic Bombings
Now available through the Library & Archives' Digital Collections portal in higher resolution, this film serves as both vital scientific evidence and a profound visual testimony on the 80th Anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
Featured Collections
Japan and Japanese Diaspora Collections
These collections focus on social, political, and economic change from the Meiji (1868–1911) to post–World War II reconstruction (1945–52) periods in Japan and overseas Japanese communities.
Ukraine Collections
Covering the emergence and development of Ukraine as an independent state since 1991, as well as earlier periods.
Chiang Kai-shek & Chiang Ching-kuo Diaries
The Hoover Institution has been helping preserve the handwritten diaries of Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo since Chiang family members deposited them at Hoover in 2005.
Policies & Practices
We continue to advance Herbert Hoover’s mission by fulfilling our strategic priorities of acquiring important historical collections on war, revolution, and peace. Our collections deal in subjects that encompass a broad range of human experiences. Policies and practices are in place to ensure that materials are cared for and made available for their ongoing use. Learn more about collection donations, description, digitization, preservation practices, and potentially harmful language and visual materials.
