You are welcome to visit the Archives during Open Hours or by making an appointment
The Glennon Archives are open every Tuesday morning from 9-11 am, every Thursday evening from 6-8 pm. The Archivist also offers Research Hours in the Historical Artifacts Room on alternating Saturdays from 2:30-4:30 pm
Additional Open Hours are added to the calendar regularly, so please check to see when the Archives are open!
If you would like to visit the Archives outside of Open Hours, please make an Appointment Request with the Archivist. The digital collection is fully accessible online. If you have a research request that cannot be answered using our digital collection but you are unable to visit us in person, please fill out a Research Request form, found here. We will respond to requests in the order that they are submitted. The Archives processes donation inquiries only through the Archives Donation Inquiry form.
T he Glennon Archives is the repository for Woburn Public Library’s historical collections. Dr. Thomas J. Glennon (1903-1994) was a local historian and Library Trustee between 1947 and 1994. For nearly 145 years, the Archives has collected and preserved the history of Woburn. The Archive’s holdings include Woburn’s original printed copy of the Declaration of Independence, many Revolutionary and Civil War records, and a wealth of unpublished material documenting life in Woburn over the past 385 years.
There are three collections of books within the Archives: the Woburn Collection, consisting of titles related to Woburn’s history; the Local History Collection, which includes town and county histories, military histories, and genealogies from Massachusetts as a whole; and the Winn Collection, consisting of rare books collected by early Woburn libraries. The Winn Collection contains many first editions, collectible books, and signed copies.
Postcard image of Main Street in Woburn from the Square, early 1890s. WOB-12.
The Manuscript Collection includes personal papers, organizational records, and other original documents pertaining to Woburn history, organized in fourteen different categories. The Archives holds over 200 distinct manuscript collections. A guide to the Collections, the Classification Guide, can be found under Finding Aids. Finding Aids are added regularly.
The Photograph Collection consists of tens of thousands of historical photographs, spanning more than one fifty hundred years of Woburn’s history, including the Patrick J. Farino Photograph Collection and the Dexter B. Johnson Photograph Collection.
The Museum Collection includes over one thousand objects from Woburn’s past, shedding light on everything from the early leather industry to the Civil War to famous Woburn citizens. Much of the Museum Collection can be viewed in the Historical Artifacts Room. The Mezzanine Mini Museum displays 7 individual exhibits that change regularly.
Physical collections are currently open to the public. If you are unable to visit the library in person, please search the Digital Collection.
Woburn Public Library resides on the lands and waterways originally belonging to the Algonquin-speaking Naumkeag and Pawtucket peoples. WPL acknowledges this history and the people who have stewarded this land though the generations, past and present.