The Tennessee Room houses a non-circulating special collection devoted to genealogical and local historical research.
In addition to over 5,000 books, there are over 1,945 microfilm rolls containing Madison County Records, Tennessee Census schedules (1810-1930), Jackson, TN newspapers (various dates beginning in 1823), Tennessee Death Indexes (1908-1957), Tennessee Death Certificates (1908-1957), and other records .

The collection includes maps, Jackson city directories, funeral records, vertical files, special collections, and photographs.

The Tennessee Room also serves to pay tribute to Emma Inman Williams (1906-1992), teacher, writer, editor, historian, and the first Tennessee Room librarian (1972-1986). "Miss Emmy", as she was often called, served as Madison County historian for many years. Her book, Historic Madison was published in three editions (1946, 1972, 1986) and still serves as the primary introduction to Madison County's early history.

The Tennessee Room maintains a close working relationship with the Mid-West Tennessee Genealogical Society and has a complete set of back issues of their publication, Family Findings.

Our latest acquisition for research is a selection of Tennessee Newspapers from ProQuest’s well-known database.
Six cities, representing all three grand divisions of Tennessee, are available through our subscription. The newspapers areas are:

• Jackson The Jackson Sun  (1936-2011)
• Memphis (eleven newspaper titles covering 1847- present)
• Clarksville  (eight newspaper titles covering Nov. 5, 1884 – present)
• Murfreesboro (two newspaper titles covering 1927-1931)
• Nashville The Tennessean covering 1812 – 2009)
• Knoxville (seven newspaper titles covering 1887 – present)

Of course, newspaper titles often appear with slight variations due to new editors or publishers over the decades.  The link to ProQuest's Newspapers.com is found by starting with the JMCL home page. Hover at the drop down for departments and select “Local History and Genealogy.”   Next, click the “View our holdings” icon. You will land on the ProQuest log in. Enter your library card number for access.  When the database opens, you will see a section revealing the many parts of this database.