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 Institution Acquires The Kamil Bena Papers
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has acquired the papers of Kamil Bena, a fantastic resource for researchers interested in Czechs in exile, from Europe and Canada to the United States and Australia. These papers reflect the activities of an array of organizations from the political and cultural to youth organizations.

News
Hoover Institution Library & Archives Reconnects With Taiwan in The Post-Pandemic Era
Hoover Institution Library & Archives Director Eric Wakin and Curator of Modern China and Taiwan Hsiao-ting Lin visited Taiwan at the invitation of a number of institutions and organizations on the island state.

News
“America’s Gift to Famine-Stricken Russia” has its First Screening in a Century, Accompanied by a Stanford String Quartet
On Tuesday evening, May 2, 2023, a screening of the 1922 film America's Gift to Famine-Stricken Russia took place in Hauck Auditorium at the Hoover Institution. The film documents the work of the American famine relief mission to Soviet Russia under the leadership of Herbert Hoover, a humanitarian undertaking that saved millions of lives in 1921–1923.

News
Letters Of Former POW James B. Stockdale Now Available At The Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has opened the letter series from the papers of James B. Stockdale, former prisoner of war, US Navy vice admiral and aviator, and Stanford graduate.

News
Richard S. R. Hubert Papers—A New Acquisition At The Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives recently acquired the papers of Richard Samuel Rene Hubert (1901–82). The Hubert papers document the US anti-Japanese propaganda campaign in the last days of the Pacific theater of World War II.
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.