Research Services & Policies
Personalized Research Service
Can’t make it to the library? Seeking some help with your research? Let us help you! For a pre-paid fee, we can investigate materials available in our collections and respond to your historical or genealogical research request. We will provide photocopies of primary resources to assist you with your research.
Non-Members: $35.00 per hour
Members: $25.00 per hour
Limit to 1 hour and will contact if more time is needed.
Please print, fill out, and mail in the form relevant to your research request.
Address your requests to:
Berks History Center ATTN: HJL, 940 Centre Ave, Reading, PA 19601
We ask that you try to refine your inquiry as much as possible, limiting them to searches for specific information about a Berks County topic. Instead of simply requesting all documents related to Joe Smith, provide any dates you may know, the names of spouses and/or children, and specific information you seek. For Genealogy Requests, please limit your search to one surname in Berks County.
While we cannot guarantee results, we will make every effort to help you by documenting all sources consulted during our research. Staff and volunteers will indicate if additional research time is needed and will often note where further information can be found.
We answer research requests on a first come, first serve basis. We will do our best to complete your request within 2 to 3 weeks, except during the summer, which can average roughly 4 to 6 weeks.
If you have additional questions about BHC’s Personalized Research Service, please contact us at library@berkshistory.org.
Document Retrieval Services
Our team can pull and copy a number of documents in our collection for you. This includes our archival collections and vertical files!
- $8.00 for church, cemetery, and Historical Review lookups
- $8.00 for all other files up to 10 pages, additional pages $0.50 per page for items that are inventoried
- $15.00 for all other files up to 10 pages, additional pages $0.50 per page for items that have NOT been inventoried
Note that items larger than 11”x17” are covered under the Digital Images Section. Due to their size, Deeds are excluded from these requests.
Please print, fill out, and mail in the form to:
Berks History Center ATTN: HJL, 940 Centre Ave, Reading, PA 19601
PLEASE NOTE: we cannot reproduce entire collections for research. Please visit our Collection Search to view descriptions of the documents within our collections. Books found in the library stack room are not included under this category. There is a ten page copy limit in effect for all books.
Photograph Reproduction & Digital Image Service
Photocopies can be made of the photographs in our collection, and is the preferred method of the Historical Society. However, if needed, digital scans can also be made of photographs and other documents.