The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives (SLA), the largest museum library system in the world, supports everything the Smithsonian does—from popular museum exhibitions to scientific research. Our expert staff and extensive collections are an unmatched worldwide resource for research and education spanning art, history, science and culture. With this campaign, we will connect with our global audience and continue offering global expertise, making the holdings of our 21 libraries and institutional archives better known and better used as we reach new communities and engage with scholars and researchers from across the country and around the world.
We will preserve and make accessible our vast holdings through digitization, including rapidly deteriorating audiovisual materials that are among the Smithsonian’s particular treasures, through the Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative. We will endow the first directorship of the unified library and archive system, foregrounding the role in the international library and archive community. We will strategically acquire books and journals to support all units; share our resources through programs for broader and more diverse audiences; and seek unrestricted funding to support the work of all programs, Library Research Centers, and the Archives, as SLA stays flexible in meeting the ever-changing needs of its users at the Smithsonian, across the country and around the world.