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
Newly Cataloged Library Materials December 2024
Critiques of Hollywood pop culture, Yugoslav perspectives, an anti-Bolshevik pamphlet, and an Oakland-published Trotskyist periodical are but some of the new library materials worth exploring. Reserve a seat in the Reading Room to view this month's in-person.
News
Hoover Acquires Oral Histories on the Fall of Communism
New oral histories with Polish and European leaders shed light on the transformation of Eastern Bloc countries, the decline of communism, and the rise of democracy.
News
Hoover Acquires the Hawaii Hochi Collection
Leading newspaper of the Japanese Hawaiian community donates materials to Hoover amid closing, enhancing the Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection, the world’s largest online archive of open-access, full image Japanese diaspora newspapers.
Press
Hoover Welcomes Public to The Battalion Artist
The Battalion Artist: A Sailor’s Journey Through the South Seas, a new exhibition from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, details the wartime experiences of US Navy Seabee Natale (Nat) Bellantoni, whose personal papers depict the Pacific theater of World War II through rich paintings, sketches, photographs, and letters.
Press
Hoover Launches Landmark Russia Abroad Digital Collection
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has launched its Russia Abroad Digital Collection (RADC), an online, open access platform that provides a global gateway to digitized newspapers of the Russian diaspora between 1917-1992.
News
Newly Cataloged Library Materials November 2024
From colorful Moroccan maps and Ukrainian propaganda posters to Russian tsar relations and the life of a Black Cuban abolitionist, explore this month's newly cataloged library materials in the Reading Room.
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.
