Special Collections

Hours & Appointments

The George S. Eccles Reading Room is open by appointment, Monday-Friday from 10AM-4PM.

Holiday Hours:

Special Collections will be closed December 24, 2025-January 1, 2026 for winter break and will re-open on January 2, 2026.

Appointment requests for January 2 must be received by noon on December 22, 2025 to guarantee an appointment. Requests received after this time will not be scheduled until the week of January 5, 2026.

In order to schedule a time and allow Special Collections staff to prepare materials for use, appointments should be requested two business days before a researcher intends to visit. Requests received over the weekend will be processed on the next business day. Appointments are available from Monday-Friday in two-hour blocks, beginning at 10 am, noon, and 2 pm. Additional instructions regarding scheduling appointments can be found in the appointment form.

Request an Appointment

Please contact Special Collections at 801.581.8863 with any questions or additional needs, or contact a curator or archivist with your specific query.

To reach Special Collections staff when the Reading Room is closed, please use the contact information on the right-hand side of each webpage.

Visitor Access

All users will need to present a personal ID at every visit. Here is a list of approved IDs.

First time community visitors and outside users will need to create accounts with Special Collections. Please plan an extra 5 - 10 min to register an account in our library system.

Affiliates of the University of Utah have a library account.

About Us

The J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections Division serves the University of Utah community, the citizens of Utah, and scholars around the world through the stewardship of original and scarce resources. Its curatorial and archival staff collects, preserves, and provides access to materials that extend across a broad range of topics and formats. Rare books, maps, and ephemera document the record of human communication and provide varied perspectives on local and global history. Unpublished archival manuscripts, photographs, posters, and video and audio recordings document the past and current history of Utah and the Intermountain West through different experiences of Western life. Extensive secondary publications support these collecting areas while a fully developed preservation program ensures that these unique materials will be available for future generations.