About the CIA Library
The CIA’s library is a valuable resource to Agency employees and is available to Agency personnel only. It contains approximately 125,000 books and subscribes to about 1,700 periodicals. The library maintains three collections: Reference, Circulating, and Historical Intelligence. New material for these collections is selected around current intelligence objectives and priorities.
The reference collection includes core research tools such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, commercial directories, atlases, diplomatic lists, and foreign and domestic phone books. CD-ROMs and extensive commercial database services round out the collection.
The circulating collection consists of monographs, newspapers, and journals. The library also participates in interlibrary loans of circulating items with other government and public libraries.
The Historical Intelligence Collection is primarily an open-source library dedicated to the collection, retention, and exploitation of material dealing with the intelligence profession. Currently, there are more than 25,000 books and extensive press clippings in the collection.
