Sitting on the third floor of Goshen College’s Harold and Wilma Good Library, the Mennonite Historical Library holds around 90,000 published resources covering Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite and other Anabaptist-related groups from the 16th century to the present. 

Founded in 1906, the MHL is one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections related to the Anabaptist tradition.

Elizabeth Miller, director of the MHL and the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism and assistant professor of history, said, “A comprehensive collection means that we are not limiting our collecting to a certain time period or a certain branch of Anabaptism or a certain type of publication.”   

“We also collect fiction, periodicals, poetry, memoirs, sociology, broadsides, Pinchpenny Press, all of those kinds of things,” she said. “We’re kind of the repository of Goshen College history in that way too.”

Eric Bradley, head librarian of the MHL, said, “Our most prized possession up here is a first edition of an Amish hymnal called the Ausbund, and it’s the only known copy of this book in the world. And it’s from the 1560s.” 

He recalled a moment when a visiting Amish man picked up the hymnal and kissed it. “He’s like, ‘Can I pick it up?’ And he picked it up and kissed it,” Bradley said. But the hymnal is not their oldest item. 

“We have a concordance from the 1540s, and there are only two known copies of this,” he said, noting the library also holds a large collection of 1500s Bibles.

Collections like these shape who seeks out the MHL. The library regularly works with students, scholars and community members exploring Anabaptist history. 

“Sometimes they will come here and hang out for a day or two, or they will stay in correspondence with me by email. Or if it’s the Amish or plain groups, they’ll often call me because they don’t use the internet,” Bradley said “We also get a lot of individuals who are interested in their family history.” 

Miller added, “We get a lot of people who are interested in genealogy.”

Bradley recently transitioned to his current position after previously working on the first floor of the library. He moved upstairs in September 2024. 

“I’ve had to learn to embrace the work up here. It’s different,” he said. “There’s always something new. There’s always another ‘What sort of thing is going to happen today?’ in this library.” 

He shared that his favorite item is a book called Our Amish Devotional Heritage, which helps explain items in the collection. “It might sound silly, but that’s my favorite in terms of it being helpful,” he said. 

While he misses regular contact with students, he added, “It’s embracing the joy that comes with this work here.”

The library’s materials are not limited to North America and Europe. 

“The largest Anabaptist denominations are in Africa, for example,” Miller said. “Those stories are maybe not as commonly told as the stories of Anabaptists from the 16th century.” 

She described visits from Anabaptist leaders from other countries who discovered materials they had never seen at home,  including Indonesian Mennonite guests who found a dissertation written by someone from their own tradition that was not available in Indonesia. “They looked up at us and they said, ‘How do you have this?’” Miller said. “They just started taking photos right away of some of the pages.”

Encounters like this happen periodically at the MHL. The library serves students, researchers and visitors who come to explore materials that connect to their histories, academic work or personal curiosity. 

“Everyone on the Goshen College campus is welcome to come up to the Mennonite Historical Library whenever you want. You don’t need an appointment during open hours,” Miller said. 

“Even if you’re not interested in Anabaptist Mennonites at all, there’s a lot of interesting stuff up there. And, we have a marble roller.”