Phillips Library (Salem, Massachusetts)

Phillips Library

Plummer Hall in 2005
Country	United States
Type	Special library
Established	1992 (1992)
Location	Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°31′21″N 70°53′30″W / 42.522389°N 70.891556°W / 42.522389; -70.891556Coordinates: 42°31′21″N 70°53′30″W / 42.522389°N 70.891556°W / 42.522389; -70.891556
Collection
Items collected	books, journals, newspapers, magazines, ephemera, maps, and manuscripts
Other information
Director	Sidney E. Berger
Staff	8
Website	http://pem.org/library

The Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum is a rare books and special collections library located in the Essex Institute Historic District of Salem, Massachusetts. It "is made up of the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem and Essex Institute, which merged in 1992. Both had libraries named for members of the Phillips family." The Phillips Library reading room is located in Plummer Hall on Essex Street, with offices in the connected John Tucker Daland House.

Plummer Hall was originally built for the Salem Athenaeum in 1857. The Athenaeum provided for space for the Essex Institute and several other groups, and sold the building to the Essex Institute in 1907. The reading room underwent restoration in 1998. Both buildings closed in November 2011 for an extensive renovation. The Phillips Library Reading Room reopened in August 2013 at its temporary location at 1 Second Street, Peabody, MA.

"The library, with its gold-leaf pillars, and busts of Nathaniel Bowditch and George Peabody, is best known for holding the original 1692 Salem witchcraft trials papers, and early works by Nathaniel Hawthorne." Collection subjects include art and architecture, Essex County, maritime history, natural history, New England, voyages and travels, Asia, Oceania, and Native American culture. Some featured collections include the C. E. Fraser Clark Collection of Hawthorniana, the Frederick Townsend Ward Collection of Western-language materials on Imperial China, and the Herbert Offen Research Collection.