The Collection

The John Carter Brown Library collection of 50,000 rare books (printed before ca. 1825), manuscripts, and 16,000 reference books and secondary sources (printed after ca. 1825) is distinguished in many subject areas. Most well-known, perhaps, are the Library’s extensive holdings in the literature of European exploration and travel in the Western Hemisphere, from the first Latin edition of the Columbus letter of 1493, through nearly all of the contemporary narratives of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English discovery, exploration, and settlement.

The John Carter Brown Library collection is entirely distinct from the Brown University Library collection and is 90% accessible online. Some 40,000 JCB titles are recorded on both the Brown University online catalogue “JOSIAH” and in the WorldCat database.   These primary materials are supported by a large bibliographical reference collection and are extended by the collections of the Brown University Libraries.

History of the Library

The scholarly value of the Library’s collection is extraordinary partly because its origins go back to a time when systematic book collecting around a historical theme was a rarity. Although the Brown family had been acquiring books since early in the eighteenth century, the present collection was not fully launched until the mid-nineteenth century when John Carter Brown (1797–1874) began avid pursuit of Americana, an area of interest he termed “the Great Subject.” His son, John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900), actively continued this tradition and before his untimely death had conceived the idea of giving the Library to the world of historical research as a memorial to his father. In his will, John Nicholas Brown assigned funds for the construction of an appropriate building and for an endowment to support the Library’s work. The original Library building was formally dedicated in 1904. In 1990, the Library raised the capital to construct a 15,000 square foot addition, designed in the classical style like the original structure and named the Caspersen Building.

Librarians of the John Carter Brown Library

·         George Parker Winship 1895–1915 

·         Champlin Burrage 1916 

·         Worthington C. Ford 1917–1922 (acting) 

·         Lawrence C. Wroth 1923–1957 

·         Thomas R. Adams 1957–1983 

·         Norman Fiering 1983–2006 

·         Edward L. Widmer 2006–2012