About

image of George Parker Winship in the John Carter Brown library

A private institution with a public mission, the John Carter Brown Library is an independent research library located on the campus of Brown University.

The JCB has undergone extraordinary changes since its mid-nineteenth-century inception as the private collection of bibliophile John Carter Brown. What began as a gentleman’s library has grown into a world-leading library of “Americana,” a term that traditionally denoted books, maps, and manuscripts related to the history of the Americas from the arrival of Europeans c. 1492 to the independence movements of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. We recognize that term even as the library takes an expansive view of its interpretation.

The JCB now offers a sought-after fellowship program that attracts between 40 and 50 scholars from around the world each year; a commitment to full digitization of the library’s collections and a digital program for supporting a dynamic environment of digital scholarship; a world-class curatorial and library staff, with professional expertise in the fields the library serves and the collections it setwards; expanding academic and public programming; and an onsite and remote research environment for anyone wishing to develop, learn, and share the complex and interconnected histories of the early Americas.