The Rosenberg Library, opened in 1904, is the oldest continuously operating public library in Texas and one of the finest Carnegie-era library buildings in the American South. The brick Beaux-Arts building on Sealy Avenue houses not just a working public library but the Galveston and Texas History Center, one of the best local history archives in the state.
The archive holds maps, photographs, manuscripts, and records documenting Galveston from its founding through the 20th century, with particular strength in the 1900 hurricane and the city's extraordinary recovery. The newspaper archive is extensive. Researchers can use the collections by appointment; the general public can visit the main library and the gallery-quality exhibitions that rotate through the history center. The building's reading rooms, with their high ceilings and ornamental plasterwork, are worth seeing in their own right.