The Research Library at the Getty Research Institute focuses on the history of art, architecture, and archaeology with relevant materials in the humanities and social sciences. The range of the collections begins with prehistory and extends to contemporary art. Presently, the collections are strongest in the history of western European art and culture in Europe and North America; however, in recent years, they have expanded to include other areas, such as Latin America, Eastern Europe, and selected regions of Asia.

The general library collections (secondary sources) include almost 900,000 volumes of books, periodicals, and auction catalogs. The literature of art history, the methods and materials of artistic production, and conservation are core areas of the holdings in classical antiquities, medieval and Renaissance art, sculpture and the decorative arts, prints and drawings, and photography.

The special collections contain rare books, prints, maps, photographs, optical devices, manuscripts, and archival collections. The thematic collecting priorities for primary research materials are Historiography of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology; The Modern Period; The History of Collecting and Display; and Visual Sources. Primarily works on paper, these collections include artists' journals, letters, sketchbooks, and teaching materials, architectural drawings, artistic biographies and treatises, early guidebooks and travel literature, emblem books, festival books and prints, reproductive prints, and the archives of art dealers and galleries.

The Photo Study Collection contains approximately two million study photographs of art and architecture from the ancient world through the twentieth century. The library also maintains a copy of the Princeton Index of Christian Art, an iconographic index of Early Christian and medieval art objects. The Research Library supports its own conservation laboratory dedicated to the preservation of Research Institute collection materials, and is home to the Getty Institutional Archives.

For appointments and reference assistance contact Library Reference.