Country | United States |
---|---|
Type | non-profitspecial library |
Established | 2003 |
Location | 104 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603 |
Collection | |
Size | 45,000 volumes, plus other material |
Other information | |
Budget | $2.5M (2010) |
Director | Kenneth A. Clarke |
Staff | 20 |
Website | http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/ |
The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a museum and a research library for the study of military history in Chicago, Illinois, US. It was founded in 2003 by Colonel (IL) Jennifer N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Ret.), then known as James Pritzker, to be a non-partisan institution for the study of "the citizen soldier as an essential element for the preservation of democracy". Originally located in the Streeterville neighborhood at 610 N. Fairbanks Court, the library later moved to 104 S. Michigan Avenue in the Loop. The library is supported by donations and membership.
The collection of the Pritzker Military Library comprises over 70,000 items and includes more than 45,000 books, as well as periodicals, videos, artwork, posters, rare military ephemera, over 9000 photographs and glass negatives from the American Civil War and the Spanish–American War to the present, letters and journals from American soldiers, and a sizable collection related to Winston Churchill. The library also has on display "a Revolutionary War soldier’s pocket journal, a Medal of Honor, and classic WWI posters." Sam Gevirtz, who was a private first class gunner on board the USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) during the Okinawa invasion, donated his two World War II diaries to the Library.
The collection is open to the public, but membership is required to borrow circulating materials. The Library participates in an interlibrary loan program with major public and university libraries in the continental United States. It is a member of several academic consortia, including the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) and Libraries Very Interested in Sharing (LVIS).