Research Library, Getty Research Institute
The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts. Its Research Library serves an international community of scholars and the interested public.
Covering the history of art, architecture, and archaeology since prehistory and antiquity and extending to contemporary art in Europe, North America, Latin America, and selected regions of Asia, the general library contains nearly 900,000 volumes of books and periodicals, including 154,000 auction catalogs.
Highlights of the Special Collections include artists' journals, letters and sketchbooks, architectural drawings, artistic biographies and treatises, early guidebooks and travel literature, emblem books, festival books and prints, reproductive prints, and archives of art dealers and galleries. In total, the Special Collections include approximately 65,000 rare books, 800 collections of prints and drawings, 5,500 collections of manuscripts and archives, 200 architectural collections, 900 collections of rare photographs, 175 audiovisual collections, and a photo study collection of over 2 million images.
These collections support research in the following broad areas:
- Historiography of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
- The Modern Period – from the 19th century to the contemporary period
- Collecting and Display
- Visual Resources for the History of Art and Architecture
- Art in Los Angeles
Searchable holdings (7/2009): Approximately 750,000 bibliographic records may be searched, including scholarly monographs, rare books, auction catalogs, microforms, A/V materials, and about 15,000 serial/periodical titles (3,500 current).
Digitized collections: Approximately 7,000 texts and 10,000 prints and photographs have been digitized and are searchable.
Interlibrary loan: The Research Library is a participant in the SHARES program of RLG-Programs/OCLC.
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