Mission
The Newberry is an internationally recognized cultural organization that is home to a growing and dynamic collection of materials that chronicles human achievement and experience from year one through today. We preserve these items and make them accessible so that users may better learn from the past, understand the present, and influence the future. Anyone 14 years of age or older can get a free readers card and explore their curiosity in our reading rooms by coming face-to-face with one of 600,000 maps, 5 million manuscript pages, or 1.6 million books, and more. We serve scholars at all points in their careers, supporting groundbreaking research in a variety of fields. We engage the public through free exhibitions that showcase the collection, free programs that explore a variety of topics from history to literature to performing arts, and continuing education classes.