1450 Poplar Lane, Lawrence, Kansas 66045

Phone: (785) 864-4334
Web Contact: Click here
Web Address: http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/

The Kenneth Spencer Research Library is home to some of the rarest and most precious volumes and materials in the world. The collections encompass recorded human knowledge ranging from cuneiform tablets written four millennia ago, to the imagined far-future landscapes of science fiction authors being published today.

Spencer Research Library is open to everyone. We welcome the public as well as researchers and scholars from all academic disciplines.

The Kansas Collection
The Kansas Collection is the regional history division of the University of Kansas Libraries. The Collection provides researchers with primary source materials that document the history of Kansas and the region. In order to support teaching and research, the staff of the Collection acquire, preserve, and make available resources such as manuscripts, photographs, maps, architectural drawings and blueprints, books, newspapers, periodicals, film and videotapes that document the “Kansas Experience.” The Kansas Collection is also a depository for publications of the state of Kansas and for Douglas County records.

The bulk of the Collection’s holdings cover the Kansas Territorial period (1854-1861) to the present. Materials beyond Kansas include documentation from the contiguous states and the Great Plains generally. Regional representation of agricultural, political and social movements, economic development, and overland trail migration expand both the time frame and types of materials available. Learn More

Special Collections
Special Collections contains a wide range of rare books and manuscripts. Its primary charge is the collection and preservation of original sources for use by students and scholars of the humanities, the history of science, and the history of the book.

Special Collections presently holds about 250,000 volumes printed since the mid-fifteenth century and about 500,000 manuscripts dating from Antiquity to the present. Learn More

University Archives
University Archives, established in 1969, is the repository for the records documenting the history of the University of Kansas. Unfortunately, many early records were lost, but some documents were identified and kept by various offices and eventually brought to the Archives for proper preservation and storage. Learn more

Browse all collections contributed by the Kenneth Spencer
Research Library, University of Kansas