Periodical Archives, Institutional Archives & Special Collection

An appointment must be submitted no later than 48 hours in advance of the requested date, for both Library members and non-members. Please complete the form at the link below to make arrangements.

The archives fee for non-members is 25€ per day and €70 for a week pass.
Archival consultation is free for Library members. 

Our onsite periodical archives includes past issues of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Harper’s Weekly, The New Yorker, Life, Ebony, Art in America, and many others. The majority of the Library’s periodical archives are located on the Lower Level and in the main floor Conference Room. Our complete list of archived periodical titles and date ranges is listed here. To check availability of a specific issue, please email our librarians.

A significant portion of our print periodical archives is now housed in the CTLes (Centre Technique du Livre de l’Enseignement Supérieur) repository. Library members may search the CTLes catalog and request issues via interlibrary loan (fees apply).

All issues of Ex Libris, the Library’s literary magazine (and its later revival as a quarterly newsletter) have been digitized, and are available to the public on our website.

The Library’s small Special Collection is held in the Collections & Reference Office and in the Director’s Office. Our Special Collection includes books previously owned by Marlene Dietrich, Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare & Company bookstore, Janet Flanner, Patricia Wells, Nadia Boulanger, Alain Bosquet, Irwin Shaw, James A. Emanuel, and others. All the books in our Special Collection are listed in our online catalog.

The Library’s institutional archive of documents and photographs may only be consulted by prior arrangement. Please email us with information about your research and we will send you the relevant finding aids. Many of the Library’s oldest archival photographs are visible on our Tumblr and a selection of images and documents that illustrate milestones in our history are on our website’s timeline. A selection of the Library’s Annual Reports is available digitally on our website. The American Library Association’s digital archive includes documents and photographs relating to the Library War Service and the founding of the American Library in Paris.

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