"The library was founded in 1970 when three collectors merged their private libraries. It was named for the 19th-century author of the first full-length work of drug literature written by an American (who was known as "the American De Quincey"), and the first book about cannabis or hashish experience in the English language — The Hasheesh Eater (1857)...

At this writing, the reputation of the Ludlow Library (although it has been largely inactive for the last decade) has grown to almost mythic status among those working and collecting in the psychoactive drug field. No comparable resource exists for scholarly research. This is largely due to the vision of the library’s founders and directors, who were educated members of the antiquarian book trade while at the same time participants in the 1960s counterculture. As the first to acknowledge and uncover the existence of a vast literature of drug experience, they ultimately served to reverse the neglect in which drug literature was previously held."

The Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library