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Steve Neal Reading Room
The Steve Neal Reading Room is located on the first floor of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. It serves as the Main Reading Room for the Published Collection, and the Reference Desk for the ALPL is located in this room. Selected materials from the Published (non-Lincoln) Collection are shelved on open stacks in the Reading Room, which include the following subjects: Illinois county histories, cemetery inscriptions, and indexes to Illinois records such as marriage, wills, naturalization, etc.; Civil War; Revolutionary War; genealogy; Illinois Daughters of the American Revolution; and selected histories from states East of Illinois such as New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, etc.
However, because the ALPL is a research Library, the vast majority of books are shelved in climate-controlled closed stacks. Researchers may search the Library's online catalog, on computers in the Reading Room, to identify titles in which they are interested. ALPL staff will retrieve the requested tiles and deliver them to the researcher in the Reading Room. Books may not be checked out of the Library and so are used only in the Main Reading Room. Please refer to the Interlibrary Loan section of this website for information on how to request to borrow titles through Interlibrary Loan.
Additional computers are available in the Reading Room for genealogical or historical research. Researchers must sign in at the Reference Desk to use a computer, and must display a valid driver's license for permission to use a computer.
The Library's Main Reading Room was named in honor of the late Steve Neal, the Chicago Sun-Times writer whose frequent columns about the development of the Presidential Library kept the project in the public's eye. Neal authored ten books on U.S. history, including his 2004 book Happy Days Are Here Again, about the 1932 Democratic Convention.
The published collection of materials owned by Steve Neal and donated to the ALPL consists of 1,950 books. The books cover a broad time period, including a book on the Roman Empire (1152 B.C.) to the present. Subjects include: Abraham Lincoln; United States presidents, politicians and historical figures; the history of Illinois and Chicago; U.S. Constitutional history; the Civil War, world wars, Vietnam, foreign affairs and military history; European history; African Americans; Irish literature/anthologies, Shakespeare and poetry; sports; the ocean; cultural histories; and biographies of persons such as Stalin and Queen Elizabeth. A number of books are autographed by persons of prominence and are also presentation copies to Steve Neal.
To search our online catalog click here: Search Catalog
Contact our Reference Librarian at telephone: (217) 524-6358
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