USGS Library locations are open to visitors Monday to Friday from 9 am to 3 pm local and other times by appointment; closed Federal holidays. Contact the library at library@usgs.gov to set up an appointment.
USGS Library locations will be closed for the Holidays from November 27-28, 2025, and December 24, 2025 through January 2, 2026. Virtual service requests continue with email to library@usgs.gov. We look forward to serving you in the New Year.
USGS Library locations will be closed for the Holidays from November 27-28, 2025, and December 24, 2025 through January 2, 2026. Virtual service requests continue with email to library@usgs.gov. We look forward to serving you in the New Year.
USGS Library
Authorized by Congress in 1879, the U.S. Geological Survey Library is recognized as one of the world’s leading Earth and natural science libraries, providing services, collections, and expertise essential to the USGS mission.
Welcome to USGS Library!
Welcome to USGS Library!
USGS Library has locations in Reston, VA, Denver, CO, and Moffett Field, CA. Each location is open to USGS employees and the public.
Ask a Librarian
Ask a Librarian
Each library location has expert reference librarians available to assist with research and provide answers to reference questions received by phone, fax, or in person. To ask for reference assistance by E-mail, Ask a Librarian at library@usgs.gov.
Quick Links
Quick Links
Use these links to access library resources.
Publications
The U.S. Geological Survey Library The U.S. Geological Survey Library
Established in 1879, to build and organize a collection of scientific materials in the earth sciences, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library is the largest earth sciences collection in the world. The USGS Library System is managed by the Geographic Information Office (GIO), Information Policy and Services Office, and includes four libraries in Reston, Va., Denver, Colo., Menlo Park...
Records and history of the United States Geological Survey Records and history of the United States Geological Survey
This publication contains two presentations in Portable Document Format (PDF). The first is Renee M. Jaussaud's inventory of the documents accessioned by the end of 1997 into Record Group 57 (Geological Survey) at the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) Archives II facility in College Park, Md., but not the materials in NARA's regional archives. The second is Mary C...
U.S. Geological Survey Library classification system U.S. Geological Survey Library classification system
The U.S. Geological Survey Library classification system has been designed for earth science libraries. It is a tool for assigning call numbers to earth science and allied pure science materials in order to collect these materials into related subject groups on the library shelves and arrange them alphabetically by author and title. The classification can be used as a retrieval system to...