A select guide to library, museum, and archival resources related to Route 66 in Illinois.

The goal of this website is to help you find library and archival materials relating to Route 66. Whether you are doing a school assignment, renovating your business on the Route, writing a major research paper or article, or filming a documentary, we hope to point you in some useful directions.

The Route 66 Archives and Research Collaboration seeks to bring attention to the historical record of Route 66.

The importance of archival sources. With each map, tourist brochure, diary or photograph, we learn more about the highway—what it looked like, who used it, what it was like to drive it. Archival information is useful not only to scholars and students, but to tourists looking to enrich their travel experience; property owners wanting to learn more about their building or business; local communities wanting to promote their town history; and government agencies responsible for managing aspects of the highway.

Many Route 66 oral histories have been collected through the years, and are available online and at various institutions around the country.