Talk:Church History Library

Untitled

Note that currently there is an image found at commons named File:Family History Library.jpg (file named wrong) which is actually the Church History Library. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 21:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

• What I think should be changed (include citations):

Extended content

The Church History Library (CHL) is a research center and the official archival repository of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The library is owned by the Church and houses records and other materials that chronicle its history and that of its members. The library opened at its current downtown Salt Lake City location in 2009.i The Church also operates the Church History Museum, which houses and displays artifacts and art.

History

The origins of the CHL trace back to the establishment of the position of Church Historian and Recorder (CHR) by Joseph Smith, founder of the Church. Smith said he received a revelation directing the Latter-day Saints to keep a history of the church.ii

Various locations were used to house the records until 1856, when a dedicated space for the Historian’s Office and church records was constructed alongside George A. Smith’s home in Salt Lake City, Utah. The collections would remain in that building on East South Temple Street for more than sixty years.iii

Plans for the new Church Administration Building included a place for the Church Historian and Recorder, Historian’s Office staff, and collections. In March 1917, the offices and records were moved to the new building, with space for about 50,000 volumes.iv

The Granite Mountain Records Vault was completed in 1963 and plans were made for a larger library and offices in the new Church Office Building on Temple Square, which would be completed in 1972.v The records and staff working under the CHR occupied four floors of the east wing in the building until 2009, when the current facility was completed.vi As the Church’s historical collection grew, records were stored in additional facilities. Beginning in 2012, small satellite facilities, Record Preservation Centers, were established, eliminating the need to bring all newly acquired records back to the CHL.vii

The Building

The library houses the Church History Department and is the official Church repository, including state-of-the-art digitization and preservation labs, public research and learning spaces, and offices of The Church Historian’s Press and the current Church Historian and Recorder. The building was dedicated on June 20, 2009,viii opening to the public a few days later.

The 230,000 square-foot (21,000 m2) building provides temperature, humidity, and air quality control for the Church's historical collection. Materials in twelve storage vaults are held at two temperatures: ten at 55 °F (13 °C) with 35 percent relative humidity and two maintained at minus four degrees Fahrenheit (-20 °C).ix

In 2009, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified that the building met or exceeded the national standard for the design, construction, and operation of environmentally friendly buildings.x

Collections

With the goal to collect, preserve, and share Church history, the CHL “holds the world’s largest collection of materials by and about the Church and its members.”xi The holdings span the Church’s history from the 1820s to the present and its expansion from New York to the world, representing an ethnic and linguistic variety that includes items in more than 150 languages.

These collections include:

270,000 books, pamphlets, magazines, manuals

500,000 historic photographs, posters, maps

23,000 audio and video recordings

120,000 local histories for Church units

150,000 journals, diaries, papers, and manuscripts

20,000 rolls of microfilm

3.5 million patriarchal blessings for Church members

Public Services

Public research and learning areas opened to the public on June 22, 2009.xii The CHL offers access to physical as well as digital, online records. In September 2010, the CHL began posting some digital collections online in partnership with the Internet Archive. An online catalog, where the CHL now hosts its digital content, launched in June 2012.xiii

Researchers can use the CHL’s online catalog to search its holdings and can visit the library’s reading room to view collections not online. While many of the library’s collections are available to the public, some records are closed to research. These can include:

Records containing information about individuals protected by government privacy laws, and

Confidential records of Church members, employees, leaders, business dealings made in non-public settings, and information about temple rites and ceremonies.xiv

Research guidance is provided through the CHL’s Ask Us service, where individuals can submit questions and connect with CHL librarians and Church history consultants. Library staff contribute articles to a CHL blog and provide online research guides to help users find and use library collections.xv Another online resource provided by the CHL, the Church History Biographical Database, contains information about the lives of over 100,000 members of the Church, including links to library collections and other resources.xvi

The CHL hosts a variety of permanent and temporary exhibits in its public space. The “Foundations of Faith” exhibit, opened in 2014, includes foundational records from the Church’s history that document its history and growth.xvii Temporary exhibits have included artifacts and documents from the life of Eliza R. Snowxviii, the history of the Young Women organizationxix, and “Crossings, Conversion, & Community: Early Norwegian Latter-day Saints.”xx

External Links

Experience the Church History Library

The Church History Library: Behind the Scenes

The Church History Library

Gifts and Donations

Citations

i.“New Church History Library to Be Constructed.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 20 April 2005. Accessed 9 March 2026; Lloyd, R. Scott. “Archival treasures in new home.” Church News. Salt Lake City: Deseret News. 20 June 2009. Accessed 7 March 2026.

ii.“Church History and Record Keeping.” Church History Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed 7 March 2026; “’A Record Kept’: Constructing Collective Memory.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 11 June 2009. Accessed 7 March 2026. iii. Andrew Jenson, “The Historian’s Office,” The Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, April 1917, 61-69.

iv. Adams, Charles P. and Larson, Gustave O. (1972). “A Study of the LDS Church Historian's Office, 1830-1900.” Utah Historical Quarterly. 40(4): 370-388; Jensen, Marlin K. “Church History: Past, Present and Future.” Journal of Mormon History, Spring 2008, 439-473.

v. “Granite Mountain Records Vault: Huge Facility is Dedicated,” Church News, 25 June 1966, 10; Jack E. Jarrard, “Building gets first major tenants,” Church News, 11 November 1972, 6-7.

vi. Schmidt, Donald T. (June 1973). “The Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Genealogical Journal: Utah Genealogical Association. 2(2): 62-65.

vii. “What is a Records Preservation Center?” Church History: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 15 February 2022. Accessed 9 March 2026.

viii. “Ground Broken for New Church History Library.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 11 October 2005. Accessed 7 March 2026; “President Thomas S. Monson Dedicates Church History Library.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 20 June 2009. Accessed 6 March 2026.

ix. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church History Library.” Jacobsen Construction, 2019. https://www.jacobsenconstruction.com/projects/the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-church-history-library/. Accessed 7 March 2026; “Church History Library.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed 9 March 2026.

x. "Registered Project Details." Certified Project List. U.S. Green Building Council. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Accessed 9 March 2026.

xi. “Overview: The Church History Library.” Church History: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed 9 March 2026; Erekson, Keith A. “The Church History Library.” Church History: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 20 January 2017. Accessed 9 March 2026.

xii. “Church History Library Set to Open.” Ensign, 76. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. June 2009. Accessed 9 March 2026.

xiii. Lloyd, R. Scott. “A global approach: Church history is being decentralized.” Church News. Salt Lake City: Deseret News. 7 July 2012. Accessed 9 March 2026.

xiv. “Accessing Church History Library Collections,” Church History: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed May 5, 2026.

xv. Walton, Valerie. “How you can make the most of the Church History Library.” Church News. Salt Lake City: Deseret News. 21 October 2021. Accessed 9 March 2026.

xvi. “Church History Biographical Database Frequently Asked Questions,” Church History: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed May 5, 2026.

xvii. “Church History Library Hosts Foundations of Faith Exhibit.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 3 September 2014. Accessed 7 March 2026.

xviii. “New Book Features 52 of Eliza R. Snow’s Best Discourses.” Newsroom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 3 March 2026. Accessed 7 March 2026.

xix. “Come learn about the Young Women organization in a new exhibit at the Church History Library called “Carry On.” 13 March 2025. Accessed 8 March 2026.

xx“Norwegian Saints Remembered for Their Faith, Service and Legacy.” United Kingdom and Ireland: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed 7 March 2026.

• Why it should be changed:

I work for the CHL and was asked to update this to the latest information about the library. Please reach out with any questions.

Mmgerber (talk) 14:41, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Reply 26-JUN-2026

  Unable to review  

• Your edit request could not be reviewed because it is unclear which references are connected to which claim statements in the text of your proposal. When proposing edit requests it is important to highlight in the text, through the use of ref tags, which specific sources are doing the referencing for each claim. The point of these inline ref tags is to allow the reviewer and readers to check that the material is sourced; that point will be lost if the ref tags are not clearly placed. Note the examples below:

Examples

N  INCORRECT

The Sun's diameter is 864,337 miles, while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles. The Sun's temperature is 5,778 Kelvin.

References

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      1. Sjöblad, Tristan. The Sun. Academic Press, 2019, p. 1.
      2. Harinath, Paramjit. (2019) "Size of the Moon", Science, 51(78):46.
      3. Uemura, Shū. The Sun's Heat. Academic Press, 2019, p. 2.

In the first example above there are three references provided, but the claim statements do not contain ref tags indicating which reference applies where. The references instead have been placed outside of the text, bundled together towards the bottom. Your edit request similarly bundles references together outside of the area of the requested text. These links between material and their source references must be more clearly made, as shown in the next example below:

Y  CORRECT

The Sun's diameter is 864,337.3 miles,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sjöblad|first1=Tristan|title=The Sun|url=http://www.booksource.com|publisher=Academic Press|date=2020|page=1}}</ref> while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Harinath|first1=Prisha|title=Size of the Moon|journal=Science|issue=78|volume=51|url=http://www.journalsource.com|date=2020|page=46}}</ref> The Sun's temperature is 5,778 Kelvin.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Uemura|first1=Shu|title=The Sun's Heat|url=http://www.websource.com|publisher=Academic Press|date=2020|page=2}}</ref>

Which displays as:

The Sun's diameter is 864,337.3 miles, while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles. The Sun's temperature is 5,778 Kelvin.

References

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• In the second example above, the links between the provided references and their claim statement ref tags are perfectly clear. Kindly reformulate your edit request so that it aligns more with the second example above, and feel free to re-submit that edit request at your earliest convenience.

Regards,  Spintendo  17:48, 26 June 2026 (UTC)