Scheide Library

On February 16, 2015, the University announced that the The Scheide Library had been received as a legacy from William H. Scheide, Class of 1936.

Scheide donates rare books library to Princeton; collection is largest gift in University's history.

Musician, musicologist, bibliophile and philanthropist William H. Scheide, a 1936 Princeton University alumnus who died in November at age 100, has left his extraordinary collection of some 2,500 rare printed books and manuscripts to Princeton University. With an expected appraised value of nearly $300 million, it is the largest gift in the University's history.

The Scheide Library is located in Firestone Library and holds very significant collections of Bibles in manuscript and print, including a Gutenberg and a 36-line Bible; medieval manuscripts and incunabula; printed books on travel and exploration; Americana; music manuscripts of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven; and other materials. For an overview, see The Scheide Library, The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 37, no. 2 (Winter 1976). Also see For William H. Scheide: Fifty Years of Collecting (Princeton, 2004)   Open by appointment only.