Collection

Phillips Library Collection

PEM’s Phillips Library, among the oldest libraries in the United States, inspires new journeys of learning.

Heir to the remarkably rich holdings of PEM’s ancestor institutions, the Phillips Library provides vital support to curious minds at the museum, in our local and regional communities and across the globe.

Our vast collection comprises manuscripts (1.25 linear shelf miles), books (more than 350,000 bound volumes), broadsides, maps, ephemera and photographs, as well as one of the world’s largest assemblages of ships’ logbooks (more than 3,000). We welcome readers of all ages to visit our reading room at the state-of-the-art James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Collection Center in Rowley, Massachusetts.

A library has been at the core of the institution since PEM’s founding. By December 1801, the library recorded its first donations; in 1804, society members elected scientist and navigator Nathaniel Bowditch as the first inspector of journals — in other words, PEM’s first librarian — and he fulfilled that role until 1820. Today’s Phillips Library is the result of the integration of the James Duncan Phillips Library of the Essex Institute with the Stephen Phillips Library of the Peabody Museum of Salem in 1992, when their parent organizations merged.

The library’s holdings reflect PEM’s collections of art in all media and across all curatorial departments in addition to its own long-standing strengths. Generous donors throughout our history have shaped the library in core subjects such as maritime art, history, and trade; the history, culture, and genealogy of Salem, Essex County, and New England; natural history; China and Japan; Native American culture; modern Indian art; and 19th-century literature. The library continues to build its collections strategically through purchase, gift and exchange.

We are fortunate to be less constrained by distance and geography than our predecessors, as technology enables us to expand free and global access to our collections through initiatives such as our Digital Collections. In 2019, as part of the museum’s expansion, we opened a dedicated gallery for rotating exhibitions of library materials. Our staff works closely with museum curators to incorporate library holdings into exhibitions and gallery installations.

Through these efforts, in conjunction with a renewed emphasis on public programming and meaningful engagement with our communities, the Phillips Library continues the tradition of curiosity and learning established here in 1799.

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Highlights from this collection

Account of Lafayette Dinner, August 30, 1824

John Remond (about 1788–1874)

Map of Nagasaki, Hizen Province, Japan (Hizen Nagasaki zu), 1696

Kumamoto Ensai

支那北京城建築 = Shina Pekinjō Kenchiku (plate 18), 1925

Itō Chūta

Scrapbook containing ancestor portraits of Chinese men and women, about 1880–1911

Artist in China

Cleopatra's Barge (Yacht) journal, 1817

George Crowninshield Jr.

The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (New York: American Bible Society, 1862)

Study for the front elevation of Derby Mansion, 1795–98

Samuel McIntire

Illustrated note, 1984

Sayed Haider (S.H.) Raza

Commonplace book, 1748–76

Henry Tiffin

ON VIEW

America: A Hymnal, 2017, book with 100 laser-cut leaves

Bethany Collins

On view in our special exhibitions gallery.

Designs for fur coats, 1927

Frank G. Speck

Massachusetts Colony five-shilling note, 1690

Massachusetts General Court

Petition of Mary Esty, September 15, 1692

Account of Lafayette Dinner, August 30, 1824

John Remond (about 1788–1874), Account of Lafayette Dinner, August 30, 1824. Ink on paper. Phillips Library. Gift of Miss Cecilia R. Babcock, June 22, 1915. Remond Family Papers. MSS 271, box 2, folder 3.

Map of Nagasaki, Hizen Province, Japan (Hizen Nagasaki zu), 1696

Kumamoto Ensai, Map of Nagasaki, Hizen Province, Japan (Hizen Nagasaki zu), 1696. Ink and color on paper. Phillips Library. Gift of Mr. Philip Hofer and Mr. Francis B. Lothrop, 1972. G7964.N26 E573.

支那北京城建築 = Shina Pekinjō Kenchiku (plate 18), 1925

Itō Chūta. 支那北京城建築 = Shina Pekinjō Kenchiku (plate 18), 1925. Phillips Library. Gift of Scott Offen, Herbert Offen Research Collection, 2004. NA1547.P3 I89 1925 +.

Scrapbook containing ancestor portraits of Chinese men and women, about 1880–1911

Artist in China, Scrapbook containing ancestor portraits of Chinese men and women, about 1880–1911. Watercolor and ink on paper. Phillips Library. Gift of Thomas Franklin Hunt, before 1898; or purchase, Ward Memorial Fund, after 1900. China Ward Collection. 750 S433 ++.