The Oak Park Public Library has Special Collections on a number of subjects that have a notable connection to Oak Park. On each of these subjects the Library has many materials in the circulating collection, and for most there are additional materials in a closed collection that can be viewed by appointment.

Special Collections Image Archive
Online access to photographs and a sampling of other materials in Special Collections.
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Edgar Rice Burroughs
Author Edgar Rice Burroughs first moved to Oak Park, Illinois in 1910 and lived here for most
of the decade, writing several Tarzan books in those years.

Ernest Hemingway
Author Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899 and lived here until 1917.

Carol Shields
Author Carol Shields was born Carol Ann Warner in Oak Park, Illinois on June 2, 1935.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived in Oak Park, Illinois between 1889 and 1909.
Wright opened his own studio in Oak Park in 1893.

Gilman Lane
Photographer Gilman Lane took over 700 photographs of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and other architects.

Grant Manson
Architectural historian Grant Manson took photographs between 1937 and 1941 while he was researching his doctoral dissertation titled Frank Lloyd Wright's Work Before 1910.

Transgender Resource Collection
With the help of a grant provided by the Illinois State Library, the Oak Park Public Library offers circulating materials that serve, welcome, and reflect transgender people.