Since temporarily closing our building in March, we’ve been preparing to welcome you safely back into the library. Now we’re excited to bring you face-to-page with our collections in the Newberry reading rooms and exhibition galleries again. 

Experience Renaissance Invention: Stradanus’s “Nova Reperta” in person or online. The exhibition, featuring objects from the Newberry, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Adler Planetarium, explores the cutting-edge technology of the Renaissance.

From multi-week courses to single-day sessions, our Adult Education Seminars are designed for lifelong learners with busy schedules, inquiring minds, and diverse interests. Browse the virtual courses available this fall, and register today.

On November 6, 1868, Walter L. Newberry (the library’s founder) died aboard a ship headed for France. The ship’s captain temporarily preserved Newberry’s body in a barrel of rum so it could be transported back to Chicago. Nearly 20 years later, a scurrilous rumor spread that Newberry wasn’t just briefly preserved in a rum barrel––he was buried in it, too.