Newberry Library

The Newberry Library ( Newberry Library), also: Newberry Research Library ( Newberry Research Library ), a humanities research library in the city of Chicago in the State of Illinois in the United States.

It was founded in 1887 and is named after Walter Loomis Newberry ( 1804-1868 ), of which half ( $ 2,100,000 ) of its assets for the establishment of a library provided for in his will, where his two daughters without descendants remained. This case actually occurred after both daughters died childless in the 1870s.

The building was designed by Henry Ives Cobb ( 1859-1931 ). The library is located since 1893 in the West Walton Street # 60 against the Washington Square Park.

The Newberry Library is a reference library and open to the public with free admission. It represents one of the world's leading independent research libraries, with an emphasis on the humanities, especially the American and European cultural history and literature.

The library includes more than 500,000 historical maps, 1.5 million books and 5 million manuscript pages, including Shakespeare Folio and an original manuscript of the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Maya.