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
The Ippei Nomoto (Keizō Norimoto) Papers: A Cornerstone of Japanese American Intellectual and Community History
This collection of correspondence, manuscripts, and rare Tule Lake publications illuminates the intellectual networks and contested loyalties that shaped Japanese American identity across four decades of the twentieth century.
News
Hoover Acquires Materials Related to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and the History of Modern and Contemporary Tibet
The newly acquired Li Jianglin Papers contain hundreds of hours of intimate interviews, personal correspondence, and artifacts given by His Holiness himself, documenting two decades of fieldwork among Tibetan communities in exile.
News
Hoover Acquires Collection of Aaron Arthur Rosen
Learn more about the life and legacy of Aaron Arthur Rosen, United States Army Signal Corps photographer (1919–1995) whose wartime service in Iran and India placed him at some of the most pivotal moments of World War II, including the 1943 Tehran Conference.
News
The Papers Of Friedrich August Von Hayek Now Accessible Online
Significant portions of the Friedrich A. von Hayek papers are now available through the Library & Archives’ Digital Collections Portal, including the Nobel Prize-winning economist's correspondence with leading twentieth-century intellectuals and unpublished manuscripts. Researchers worldwide can now explore primary sources documenting the evolution of free market economics, classical liberalism, and the founding of the Mont Pelerin Society.
News
Digital Publishing Efforts Advance, Seven Historic Collections Now Available for Research at Hoover
Themes such as wartime collaboration, occupation policies, military modernization, economic development, and diaspora experiences are strongly represented in the recently published collections — which span American, Chinese, Russian, and Japanese contexts.
News
Hoover Acquires the Papers of Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Journalist and Advisor on South Asian and Middle Eastern Affairs
The collection includes rare Pakistan Army documents, correspondence between Middle Eastern and Pakistani leaders during the Cold War, original research on U.S.-Pakistan relations, materials on the Kashmir and 1971 wars, and Nawaz's investigation into the suspicious death of Pakistan's army chief in 1993.
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.