Research Collections

Fine arts, art history, decorative arts, architectural history, design, and theory.

Subject: Art History, Fine Arts, Decorative Arts, Architectural History, Design, Design History, Theory

Format: Monographs, Serials, Exhibition Catalogs, Auction Catalogs, Databases, Ephemera

Location: Schwarzman Building, Third Floor, Room 300

Holdings illuminate every type of performance, from street corner to stage to studio.

Subject: Theater

Format: Video, Film, Ephemera

Location: Library for the Performing Arts, Third Floor

The Picture Collection contains a million pictures, arranged by subject, available for circulation and reference.

Subject: Circulating Picture Collection

Format: Prints, Photographs

Location: Mid-Manhattan Library, 3rd floor

One of the great collections of Judaica in the world.

Subject: Judaica

Format: Manuscripts, Periodicals, Books

Location: Schwarzman Building First Floor, Room 111

Materials documenting United States History on the national, state and local level, Genealogy, Heraldry, Personal and Family Names, and Flags.

Subject: History, Genealogy, New York City History

Format: Genealogy Resources, Census Records, Rare Books, Manuscripts, Photographs, Archival Materials, Books, Periodicals

Location: Schwarzman Building, First Floor, Room 121

Chronicles the art of dance in all its manifestations — ballet, ethnic, modern, social, and folk.

Subject: Dance

Format: Books, Films, Video, Audio, Clippings, Iconography, Manuscripts, Memorabilia

Location: Library for the Performing Arts, Third Floor

29,000 linear feet of archival material in over 3,000 collections.

Subject: Political, economic, social and cultural history.

Format: Manuscripts, Volumes, Printed Material, Photographs, Ephemera.

Location: Schwarzman Building, Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328

Chronicles the art of music in all its diversity — opera, spirituals, ragtime, jazz, musical comedy, orchestral, rock, and pop music.

Subject: Music

Format: Printed Books, Scores and Periodicals, Clippings, Programs, Archives, Sheet Music, Electronic Resources

Location: Library for the Performing Arts, Third Floor

One of the world's leading repositories for the study of English Romanticism.

Subject: English Literature

Format: Printed Materials, Manuscripts

Location: Schwarzman Building, Third Floor, Room 319

The Print Collection of The New York Public Library encompasses over 200,000 prints along with a specialized reference collection of over 15,000 volumes on the history of prints and printmakers.

Subject: Prints

Format: Prints, Reference Materials

Location: Schwarzman Building, Third Floor, Room 308

Over 500,000 sound recordings in every format: cylinder, 78rpm, LP, reel-to-reel tape, cassette, CD, laser disc.

Subject: Recorded Music, Literature and Speech

Format: Recordings, Moving Images, Printed Materials

Location: Library for the Performing Arts, Third Floor

Rare, unique, and primary materials that document the history and culture of peoples of African descent.

Subject: History of blacks in the United States, Caribbean and Africa; slavery, biography; performing arts, literature, religion

Format: Personal and family papers, organizational records, literary manuscripts, playscripts, rare books, sheet music, broadsides, programs and playbills.

Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Second Floor

500,000 images depicting the history and culture of peoples of African descent worldwide; a representative body of work by photographers of African descent

Subject: Portraiture, photojournalism, fine art photographic expressions and 18th and 19th century prints

Format: Photographs and prints

Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

The Spencer Collection surveys the illustrated word and book bindings of all periods and all countries and cultures, from medieval manuscripts, Japanese scrolls, and Indian miniatures to monuments in Renaissance printing, illustration and binding to contemporary livres d'artistes.

Subject: Medieval Manuscripts, Renaissance Printing and Illustration, Japanese Scrolls

Format: Manuscripts, Prints, Works on Paper

Location: Schwarzman Building, Third Floor, Room 308