Photo By Clifford Davis | 250331-N-FJ200-1001 WASHINGTON D.C. (March 31, 2025) On display during the Navy...... read more read more
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WASHINGTON NAVY YARD – The Navy Department Library celebrated 225 years of service on March 31, 2025.
In a letter dated March 31, 1800, President Adams directed Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert to establish a library that “ought to consist of all the best writings in Dutch, Spanish, French, and especially the English, upon the theory and practice of naval architecture, navigation, gunnery, hydraulics, hydrostatics, and all branches of mathematics subservient to the profession of the sea. The lives of all the admirals, English, French, Dutch, or any other nation, who have distinguished themselves by the boldness and success of their navigation or their gallantry and skill in naval combat."
Former Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, was in attendance during the ceremony and recognized the importance of the Navy Library, the significance of the occasion, and the vital role that the team staffing the Navy Library plays in the future of this resource.
"It's such an incredibly important role that you all play here" said Del Toro, "Here is where the facts are recorded by those who interpreted it at the time and the historians who studied them throughout our Navy's history, and it's important be able to have those facts ever present so that other scholars and other individuals who want to learn more about our Navy and our Marine Corps can actually come and read these words as they were interpreted at that moment in time.”
Today, the Library’s mission continues as it provides resources for scholarly research on the history, heritage, and warfare of the United States Navy through the preservation of historical literature and photographs. It is also one of the few major military historical libraries open to the public and serves an international audience.
“The Navy Department Library’s 225th anniversary or birthday is a celebration of its visionary leaders and dedicated stewards of this institution’s collection,” said Dennis Wilson, Naval History and Heritage Command’s Library branch head. “Today, we are the stewards of this era of the Navy Department Library."
The Library continues to seek creative and innovative approaches, utilizing new technology to provide improved reference services while ensuring the protection and preservation of its unique collection of books, serials, and manuscripts.
“In the near future, we hope to further our online presence through technology to not only enhance search results and functionality, but the user’s experience in researching the Navy Department Library’s collections, be it print, photos, maps, manuscripts, cruise books, journals, etc.”, said Wilson.
Beginning with handwritten catalogs to track materials, the Library would eventually swap over to a classification system for better organization, with it later transitioning from a card catalog to an online catalog system to improve the accessibility of the continually growing collection. These evolutions have helped ensure the Library continues to achieve its mission in the ever-changing world. Through the adaptation of new systems and technologies the Library ensures that researchers can find the historical information they are looking for in a timely manner and have maintained the department’s relevance in the modern digital age.
“Our libraries are precious and essential resources for historical work overall. The staffs of the service historical office libraries are in constant contact to field requests, support staff, and respond to public inquiries,” said Charles Bowery, Executive Director of U.S. Army Center of Military History and Chief of Military History. “This significant milestone is a good opportunity to remind ourselves that we have been in the business of capturing our institutional histories since the very birth of the nation.”
Over the past 225 years, the Library's collection has developed into an institution containing more than 114,000 book titles, 374,000 manuscripts, and 189,000 issues of periodicals. Included in this vast assortment of historical texts are 5,644 Rare and 11,011 Special Collections titles, with an emphasis on naval, nautical, and military histories of both U.S. and foreign navies. Seventeen percent of the Navy Department Library items are unique and not found in any other library or institution in the world.
In 2024 The Navy Library Department underwent a move into a new facility on the Washington Navy Yard. The new space not only provides benefits to both the Library’s staff and patrons, such as better computers, micro film scanners, and the consolidation of the collection to one area, but also provides advantages to the collection itself through a more consistent climate control system, and providing available space for new materials as the department’s collection continues to grow in the decades to come.
To learn more about the Navy Department Library, please visit https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/about.html
NHHC, located at the Washington Navy Yard, is responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage. It provides the knowledge foundation for the Navy by maintaining historically relevant resources and products that reflect the Navy's unique and enduring contributions through our nation's history and supports the fleet by assisting with and delivering professional research, analysis, and interpretive services. NHHC is composed of many activities including the Navy Department Library, the Navy Operational Archives, the Navy art and artifact collections, underwater archeology, Navy histories, ten museums, USS Constitution repair facility and the historic ship Nautilus.
For more news from NHHC, visit www.history.navy.mil
| Date Taken: | 04.01.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.01.2025 12:18 |
| Story ID: | 494256 |
| Location: | WASHINGTON D.C., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Web Views: | 170 |
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