Case Western Reserve University, the other institutions in its University Circle neighborhood, and the Cleveland area in general offer excellent facilities for historical research. These facilities are especially strong in the fields of social policy history and the history of medicine, health care, nonprofit organizations, technology, and science. The university library’s extensive collections in these fields are significantly augmented by the holdings of the nationally-ranked Cleveland Health Sciences Library in the history of medicine and health care, and of the equally distinguished Western Reserve Historical Society in regional economic, social, nonprofit, ethnic, African-American, and Jewish history. Both the Cleveland Health Sciences Library and the Western Reserve Historical Society library are adjacent to the campus.

The Cleveland Public Library, just five miles from campus in downtown Cleveland is the third largest public library in the U.S.; it maintains excellent research collections in Ohio, U.S. and British history, technology and business. CWRU has also pioneered in the development of electronic connections to other libraries and to research resources in general. Through OhioLINK, Ohio’s many colleges and universities have one of the nation’s leading interlibrary loan programs; books are ordered statewide by patrons using their desktop computers, and are normally delivered within three to five days.