New York Academy of Medicine

Established in 1847 and opened to the public in 1878, this library holds an exhaustive catalog of medical journals, documents and other ephemera. The library subscribes to more than 1,000 journals, and there are more than 800,000 volumes in the main collection. Check out its historical collections, which contain items like an amputation kit and documentation about an 18th-century smallpox outbreak in the U.K.

Visits are by appointment, but there are free drop-in hours on the first Monday of every month at noon.