The Sutro Library, located on the 5th and 6th floors of the J. Paul Leonard Library, invites all San Francisco State University faculty, students, and staff to explore Adolph Sutro's collection of 90,000 rare books and 100,000 pamphlets and broadsides. The collection is particularly strong in early Mexican culture, religion and politics (1540–1889), British political and religious pamphlets (almost all pre-1800), Yemenite Hebrew manuscripts (13th–14th centuries), and several hundred Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints (pre-1860). The library also holds Shakespeare folios, incunabula, antiquarian maps and the papers of famed British naturalist and botanist, Sir Joseph Banks.
Adolph Sutro's heirs donated his collection to the California State Library in 1913 and after operating in various locations in the city for almost 100 years, the Sutro Library moved to its permanent home at San Francisco State University in 2012.