This site allows you to search across collection guides (known as finding aids) to over one thousand archival collections housed at Georgetown University. These guides will help you find manuscripts, photographs, correspondence and other archival material related to your area(s) of research. You can search the guides using keywords or browse by collection title or subject. New guides are added to the site on a regular basis as new collections are acquired and made available to researchers

Contact Us

For more information on the collections, research advice, and other inquiries, please reach out to us using our information request form. Our staff is dedicated to making our collections accessible and are happy to aid you in your research.

How to Access our Collections

Our collections are available to researchers in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections reading room, located on the 5th floor of Lauinger Library. Appointments are required in advance of your visit. Please contact speccoll@georgetown.edu to request an appointment. Researchers will need to register for a user account via our Aeon registration system.

Problematic Language and Reparative Archival Description

We have recently begun a review of our finding aids to identify problematic language and improve description (including scope and content notes, subject headings, folder titles, and more). As part of this effort, we invite users to notify us if they encounter problematic language in our finding aids or elsewhere on our site. You may provide feedback by form, email, chat, or phone (202-687-2814, Head of Archival Processing). For more information, please see our Statement on Problematic Language and Reparative Archival Description.

Digitized Collections

A selection of materials from our collections have been digitized and are available online in DigitalGeorgetown.

Collection Strengths

• Manuscripts Division: Political science, diplomacy and international affairs, American and European history, literature and linguistics, music, medieval manuscripts, Jesuits and Catholic education.
• Rare Books: Art history, 19th- and 20th-century British literature and Victorian novels, African-American literature and imprints, Jesuit history, American history and literature, intelligence and espionage, artist books, seminal works in the history of ideas, and the libraries of many important writers, scholars, presses and collectors.
• University Archives: History and development of Georgetown University and its constituent parts.
• Woodstock Theological Library: Early modern history, Jesuit studies, Catholic history, theology, biblical studies, church history, Jesuit missions, the Age of Exploration, modern Jesuitica
• Bioethics Research Library: History of bioethics, bioethics at Georgetown University, U.S. bioethics commissions and public health policy, genetics, bioethics and the humanities.