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Raven Library

The Garden Archives serve as the "institutional memory" of the Garden. In addition to records of the Garden's directors and Board of Trustees, the Archives also includes architectural drawings, historical photographs, and the 19th century personal and business papers of the Garden’s founder Henry Shaw.

Take a stroll through time…

View more than 1,500 images from the Garden Archives

Want to learn more about the Garden Archives' unique holdings?

The Archives are located on the main campus at 4344 Shaw Blvd. For more information about the Garden Archives, please contact:

Andrew Colligan, Archivist

Phone: (314)577-5158 
P.O. Box 299 
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299

More than five miles of bookshelves hold the Library's General Collection.

The General Collection is the Library's largest and most rapidly growing collection. It includes more than 200,000 volumes of books and journals stored on row after row of compact shelves. More than 1,000 new books and issues from over 800 journal titles are added each year!

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The Peter H. Raven Library's Rare Book Collection contains over 6,500 volumes dating back as far as the 15th century.  Among the most prized are the first edition, first printing of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and exquisitely beautiful works such as James Bateman's The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala.   

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