What I Found Reviewing Boston Public Library's Research Collections on May 4, 2026

Setup and why this review

The fourth in my remote library website review series. I am Mustafa Bilgic, Adıyaman, Türkiye. On Saturday, May 4, 2026, I spent approximately 60 minutes reviewing the Boston Public Library website (bpl.org), with a specific focus on the research collections at the McKim Building on Copley Square.

BPL is the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States, established March 18, 1848. The McKim Building (1895) is a National Historic Landmark; the Philip Johnson 1972 addition was renovated in 2016. The library houses 23 million items, the second-largest public library collection in the U.S. after the Library of Congress.

What bpl.org's homepage shows

bpl.org's homepage on May 4, 2026 led with a feature on the John Adams Library digitisation project (announced March 2025): the project is scanning the John Adams Library marginalia for the first complete digital edition. Adams's personal library — over 3,000 volumes — has been at BPL since 1894 (a gift from his great-grandson Henry Adams). The marginalia (Adams's handwritten annotations in the margins) are a major historical resource, and previously had been accessible only via in-person research at the McKim Building.

The homepage also featured: the upcoming 130th anniversary of the McKim Building (February 2025 reception in Bates Hall — the announcement is still featured a few months later); the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center's interactive exhibits; and the Boston Public Library's adult literacy programmes.

The research collections page

The 'Research Collections' page is a portal to BPL's special collections. I counted 14 distinct collection departments: Print Department, Rare Book Department, Music Department, Government Documents, the Boston Globe Library (newspaper archive), the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center, the John Adams Library, the Anti-Slavery Manuscript Collection, the Defoe Collection, the Burns Collection (Robert Burns first editions), the Schmidt Theatre Collection, the Lifelong Learning Collection, the Watercolour Collection, and the Brown Music Collection.

Each department has its own sub-page with a finding aid, hours of access, contact for researcher consultation, and digital images where available. The depth is unusual for a public library — most U.S. public libraries do not maintain 14 distinct research departments.

The Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center

I clicked into the Leventhal Map Center pages. The collection is globally important: 250,000 maps and 5,000 atlases. The Leventhal Map Center is partnered with the David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford and other major map archives.

The interactive georeferencer is the standout feature. The site lets you overlay a historical map (e.g., John Bonner's 1722 'Town of Boston in New England') on the modern Boston street grid, with adjustable opacity. I tested the 1722 Bonner map; it lined up reasonably well over modern downtown Boston, with Beacon Hill and the Common still recognisable.

The Leventhal Map Center also publishes K-12 lesson plans (free download) for using historical maps in classroom teaching. This is the kind of public scholarship that distinguishes a research library from a circulating library.

The John Adams Library project

The John Adams Library page describes the collection's significance: Adams was the second President of the United States; his personal library was given to BPL in 1894; the volumes contain extensive marginalia (handwritten annotations in the margins) that reveal Adams's reading habits and intellectual influences.

The 2025 digitisation project, partnered with the Adams National Historical Park, will produce the first complete digital edition of the marginalia. The project page shows progress: as of May 4, 2026, approximately 35% of the marginalia have been transcribed and digitised. The full project is scheduled for completion in 2027.

This is open scholarship at scale. The transcribed marginalia are released under a CC BY 4.0 licence, meaning any researcher can re-use the transcriptions in derivative work as long as they credit BPL. This kind of open licensing is increasingly standard but still not universal at U.S. research libraries.

Research collection hours and access

The hours page is informative. McKim Building general hours: Monday-Thursday 9am-9pm, Friday-Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday 1pm-5pm.

However, individual research departments often have separate hours. The Rare Book Department: by appointment Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center: walk-in Monday-Friday 9am-5pm; appointment for reading-room access on Saturday. The Government Documents Department: walk-in during library hours.

The Bates Hall (the iconic main reading room of the McKim Building) is open to all library visitors during library hours. Some exterior tours of the building are scheduled for weekends.

What I could not verify

I cannot verify: in-person research room conditions; the experience of using a researcher pass to access the Rare Book Department; or any physical-space details. For those, a Boston-based researcher is necessary.

If you are planning a research visit to BPL: contact the specific department in advance. Most special collections at BPL accept researchers by appointment with two weeks of notice. The Rare Book Department's Heather Cole (the Curator of Modern Books) is the typical first contact for non-Boston-based researchers.