World's Fairs (or Universal Expositions or Expos) are large, public exhibitions, usually featuring national pavilions. The first World's Fair is generally considered to be the Crystal Palace Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, in 1851.
Research in libraries on World's Fairs can be challenging because there is no single subject term specific to just World's Fairs. Instead, library catalogs use the general term "Exhibitions", which can apply to any industrial or international exhibition. Each World's Fair will also have specific form of name that can be searched in the library catalog, but it is not always obvious what that specific form of name is.
This guide is therefore designed to assist researchers in finding the subject and name terms most useful in a library catalog for finding information on World's Fairs.
