The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library (ALPL), located at 112 N. Sixth Street in Springfield, is often confused with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum (ALPM) across the street. While the museum itself has amazing exhibits and displays that should not be missed, the library has information galore for Lincoln researchers and genealogists alike.
Steve Neal Reading Room
The Steve Neal Reading Room is located on the first floor of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. It serves as the Main Reading Room for the Published Collection, and the Reference Desk for the ALPL is located in this room. Selected materials from the Published (non-Lincoln) Collection are shelved on open stacks in the Reading Room, which include the following subjects: Illinois county histories, cemetery inscriptions, and indexes to Illinois records such as marriage, wills, naturalization, etc.; Civil War; Revolutionary War; genealogy; Illinois Daughters of the American Revolution; and selected histories from states east of Illinois.
However, because the ALPL is a research Library, the vast majority of books are shelved in climate-controlled closed stacks. Researchers may search the Library's online catalog, on computers in the Reading Room, to identify titles in which they are interested. ALPL staff will retrieve the requested tiles and deliver them to the researcher in the Reading Room. Books may not be checked out of the Library and so are used only in the Main Reading Room.
Additional computers are available in the Reading Room for genealogical or historical research. Researchers must sign in at the Reference Desk to use a computer, and must display a valid driver's license for permission to use a computer.
Newspaper/Microfilm Collection
In the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's Newspaper Microfilm Collection there are more than 5,000 newspaper titles preserved on nearly 100,000 reels. The Library holds newspaper titles from every one of Illinois' 102 counties. Many date from the early 19th century, including the earliest newspaper published in Illinois, The Illinois Herald from Kaskaskia (1814). The Library subscribes to over 300 current newspaper titles. Visitors may use microfilm machines to locate the information they are looking for.
Audio-Visual Collection
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's Audio-Visual Collection contains more than 400,000 photographs. Various holdings visually document Illinois politics, labor relations, military matters, businesses, agriculture, and family life over time. Over 5,000 broadsides are also housed in this section, including an impressive collection of World War I and World War II posters.
Approximately 7,000 audio tapes document the daily activities of past gubernatorial administrations, as well as the Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1969-1970. The Library has over 1,000 World War II oral history interviews.
Manuscripts Collection
The manuscript holdings of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library consist of over 6,000 individual manuscript collections containing more than 10.8 million unpublished items. Among them are letters and diaries from Civil War soldiers, as well as the papers of Illinois businesses, individuals, and government officials. There are particularly interesting collections dealing with slavery in Illinois, the state's place in westward expansion, labor history, education, and more.
Lincoln Collection
The collection began in the 1890s as part of the Illinois State Historical Library, and new items are added all the time. Preserved in the Lincoln Collection are:
• Almost 1,600 original letters and manuscripts written or signed by Lincoln;
• More than 280 historical artifacts associated with the sixteenth president and his family that are rotated in exhibition at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, including such items as Lincoln's beaver-fur stovepipe hat; the Edward Everett holograph of the Gettysburg Address (one of the five existent copies of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's own hand); the Leland-Boker printing of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by the president; the House of Representatives resolution for the 13th Amendment to end slavery, also signed by Lincoln; his traveling shaving mirror; two dozen of his law books; Tad Lincoln's toy cannon, the skirt to Mary Lincoln's wedding dress; Mary's blood-stained fan from Ford's Theatre; and many more priceless items of historical import;
• Approximately 320 pieces of Mary Lincoln's correspondence by far the largest anywhere.
• The entire 20,000 pages of the letterpress books of Robert Lincoln; as well as hundreds of letters by his wife, children, and grandchildren;
• Over 3,000 Lincoln-related prints and photographs;
• Over 1,000 broadsides, from the 1830s to the 2010s;
• Over 12,000 books and pamphlets;
• Over 2,000 items of Lincoln fine art, ephemera, and popular art and crafts that reflect evolving notions of Lincoln and his legacy in the collective memory of the American people and the people of the world.
Research Appointments and other library information
Appointments must be scheduled in advance to peruse the Audio-Visual, Manuscripts, and Lincoln Collections. The library may be contacted at (217) 558-8844 and is open weekdays from 9am to 5pm, A parking garage is available off 6th Street between Madison and Madison Streets. Entrance to the library is free, but printouts or copies will be charged accordingly.
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