The NPL Online Library Catalog

The NW Philatelic Library's online catalog is hosted by the American Philatelic Research Library as part of the David Straight Memorial Philatelic Union Catalog. This catalog does not require a username or password.

Link to the Philatelic Union Catalog (opens new window)

Using the Catalog:

The Philatelic Union Catalog has an easy-to-use search engine. From the main page, click on "Advanced Search" to reach this page:

From the drop-down list of libraries at the bottom, select "NWPL." Now you can search for items held by the NW Philatelic Library.

Use the top Keyword search field to find a title or topic (such as "Revenue"). To make your search more specific, you can add a specific Title and/or Author. Then just hit the Search button in the lower right.

The Northwest Philatelic Library Collection

The library collection was organized in the early 1960s by combining donations from personal philatelic libraries of members of the Oregon Stamp Society. These donations included many landmark philatelic studies and records.

In the ensuing the years, the collection has been greatly enlarged through judicious purchases and additional continuing donations.  The composition of the collection is sufficiently specific to serve those interested in narrowly-focused empirical research, yet general enough to provide assistance to those with broader descriptive interests.   

The scope of the collection is appropriate for all age groups, experience levels, and types-of-use.  It is a collection of information resources organized for common use.

BOOKS are cataloged either by Geography or Subject matter. These two systems are not totally independent, so if you cannot find a book in one category, then try the other.

PERIODICALS are catalogued by name under the code PER. The library does not have electronic indexes for these periodical sets, but some have printed indexes. Many indexes have been consolidated online by the APRL and can be searched in the Union Catalog by entering "Article" as the Record Type, along with a topic keyword.

To see how the NPL categorizes topics and countries in our Call Numbers, download a printable list of our Catalog Categories. (PDF, 24KB)

How to Check Out Books