The David Sarnoff Library was established at the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey in 1967 as a showcase for the accomplishments of long-time Radio Corporation of America (RCA) head David Sarnoff. After five years of activity, the Library was largely moribund until the arrival of Alex Magoun as Curator (later Executive Director) in 1998. Under his leadership, the Library expanded its mission to include the history of RCA in general and the David Sarnoff Research Center in particular. Due to lack of funding, the David Sarnoff Library closed in 2009. The collection documents the creation and evolution of the Library through board of directors records, correspondence, reports, oral histories, and photographs.

The David Sarnoff Research Center (DSRC) in Princeton, New Jersey was the central research organization for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from 1942 to 1987. Following GE’s acquisition of RCA in 1986, the DSRC was donated to SRI International as a contract research laboratory. Renamed the Sarnoff Corporation in 1997, it was integrated into SRI in 2011. The records document the pioneering research of its scientists and trace the history of the organization from its establishment into the twenty-first century.