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
Hoover Archives Acquires New Historical Materials Evidencing Taiwan’s Bumpy Process toward Democratization
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has acquired the papers of Thomas B. Gold, a retired professor from the University of California–Berkeley reputed for his research into Taiwan.
News
Hoover Acquires the Papers of Shultz Biographer Philip Taubman
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has recently acquired the papers of journalist and author Philip Taubman.
News
President of RFE/RL visits the Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Jamie Fly, president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) visited Hoover to discuss new initiatives to increase public awareness and stimulate research based on Hoover’s holdings of the RFE/RL Broadcast and Corporate Records and related papers.
News
Online Exhibition Bread + Medicine: Saving Lives In A Time Of Famine Launches At The Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Discover a new series of digital stories featuring collection highlights, Stanford student scholarship, and other compelling material on a catastrophic famine in Soviet Russia and Ukraine one hundred years ago and the American humanitarian aid that helped combat it.
News
Donald R. Heath Collection includes New Interwar Materials Donated to the Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Donald R. Heath was a White House correspondent for the United Press International before becoming a career diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1920 to 1961. New materials added to the Heath collection were recently featured in a bestselling historical nonfiction book.
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.
