Harold B. Lee Library

History of the Perry Special Collections

“The acquisition of knowledge is a fundamental part of the Lord’s eternal plan for His children.”
- L. Tom Perry

Founded in 1957, Special Collections at BYU began with 1,000 books, 50 manuscript collections, and one curator. Today the department has 14 full-time curators and manuscript processors assisted by 30 students working with 300,000 books, 9,000 manuscript collections, and nearly 3/4 million photographs.

In 1999 Special Collections moved into newly designed facilities on the first floor (second lower level) of the Harold B. Lee Library. Aline and L. Sam Skaggs, through their ALSAM Foundation, made a generous financial donation to the new library and requested that the Special Collections be named after L. Tom Perry, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In May of 2003, the department chair of Special Collections made a presentation at the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists (CIMA) and shared a brief history of Special Collections.

» Download a Brief Department History Slideshow