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European Reading Room staff help users navigate the Library’s vast European collections. The Division’s specialists promote discoverability by providing reference materials, guides, bibliographies, and other studies. Staff recommends new collection materials to best serve researchers, the library community, and federal agencies. The European Reading Room is located on the second floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, in the Southeast Pavilion, entry is via the Hispanic Reading Room. A reader card is required for access to all reading rooms.
The European Reading Room should be the starting point for readers and researchers whose interest relates to European countries, including the Russian-speaking areas of Asia, but excluding Spain, Portugal, and the British Isles.
Our staff of multilingual reference librarians can direct you to the materials you need and answer reference questions related to the European collections.
The European Reading Room offers research orientations every other Tuesday. Consultations also are available by appointment or for walk-ins. The European Division also sponsors special events such as lectures and symposia.
The European Reading Room contains a reference collection of approximately ten thousand volumes on Europe. This collection covers all European countries except Portugal, Spain, and the British Isles, and includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical, historical, and genealogical works, guides, directories, statistical yearbooks, atlases, and specialized catalogs and guides.
Readers may access the catalog of the Library of Congress and have books and bound periodicals from the general collections delivered to the European Reading Room.
The European Reading Room has custody of current, unbound Slavic and Baltic periodicals (about 3,500 titles, including 250 newspapers). Also available are collections of political and social ephemera and uncataloged pamphlets.