Federal and State Documents
Pennsylvania State Documents Depository
The State Library is the official depository for printed publications of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This collection provides an historical repository of materials of the government of Pennsylvania from the 1700s to the present. A system of depository libraries has been set up so that many state publications can be used at locations outside of Harrisburg. Many of the publications are available electronically and may be located and accessed through our catalog.
Federal Documents Depository
The State Library participates in the U.S. Government Printing Office Federal Depository Program. The collection dates back to the mid 1800s, with new materials being received on a continual basis. The State Library is the Regional Federal Depository Library for the Commonwealth; and, as such, receives a copy of every U.S. government publication distributed to depository libraries. Many federal publications are published electronically and may be located and accessed through our catalog, while others are available on the web at the GovInfo | U.S. Government Publishing Office or USA.gov. For more information about conducting research with our Documents collection, please check out the Documents Research Guide.
Rare Collections
The State Library of Pennsylvania began collecting books with its official founding in 1745 and continues to build its unique collection of materials by, for, and about Pennsylvania. Our rare and special collections include several groupings.
Assembly Collection
The core of the State Library's Rare Collections Library is the Original Assembly Collection which numbers over 400 extant volumes. These books were purchased by the Pennsylvania Assembly, beginning in 1745 for the legislators' reference in governing the Commonwealth. This collection contains primarily law books, but also dictionaries, books on architecture, philosophy, history and religion.
Pennsylvania Imprints
Rare books published by presses in Pennsylvania cities large and small, between 1685 and 1865. These imprints include: (1) religious tracts, works of piety and sermons, (2) almanacs, (3) political tracts and legislative proceedings, (4) reports of social welfare, abolitionist, women's suffrage and other societies, (5) works of history and geography, especially school textbooks, and (6) juvenile books.
Miscellaneous Rarities
The State Library's collection of rare works also includes a wide variety of non-Pennsylvania imprints, dating from the incunabula period of the 15th century through the 20th century. The earliest volume in the collection is Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber chronicarum) (1493). This varied collection—much of it published by European presses—ranges from William Penn's plea for religious toleration, Christian liberty as it was soberly desired in a letter to certain foreign states upon occasion of their late severity of their inhabitants, merely for their different persuasion and practice in point of faith and worship towards God (London, 1675), and George Whitfield's pamphlet on The enthusiasm of Methodists and papists compar'd (1749) to Louis Agassiz's Contributions to the natural history of the United States of America (1857).
The Pamphlet Collection
Another important rare collection, especially valuable for the study of Pennsylvania's social and intellectual history in the 19th and 20th centuries, is the Pamphlet Collection of some four thousand volumes. Examples from this important rare resource include Dorothea Dix's Memorial soliciting a state hospital for the insane (1845), A report of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States and the judges thereof , in the case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sanford (1857), and an Address upon the late Joseph Leidy, a eulogy (the famous University of Pennsylvania paleontologist) offered by William Hunt (1892). The State Library has been focusing on digitizing this unique collection and titles from it can be accessed online.
For more information about conducting research in our Rare and Special Collections, please contact Michael Lear, Rare Collections Librarian, at mlear@pa.gov or 717-783-5982.
More Collections
The State Library has been building its collections since Benjamin Franklin selected its first set of books in 1745. Current collection development reflect its basic mission to provide research service to the Commonwealth government but its long history of collection in the broad subject areas of interest to state government has resulted in a collection which is particularly strong in the fields of public administration, economics, political science, statistics, education, public services, as well as North American, United States and Pennsylvania history. Detailed information about the various parts of the collection can be found under Resources.