Skip to Main Content

Art History

ABOUT OGLC AND THE ART LIBRARY. . .

As part of the Deering renovation, the Art Library in the Martin Reading Room will look a little different. The elimination of non-original shelving means that there is less space available for books, and the collection has been carefully curated to reflect that. Many older, more fragile items, as well as items that have never been checked out, have been moved to the library’s off-site storage, the Oak Grove Library Center. A climate-controlled location, OGLC will help prolong their life, ensuring that they will remain useful tools for scholarship well into the future. Items remaining in Deering have been carefully chosen to include both fundamental resources in art history, as well as the most recent scholarship in the discipline.
The most important fact to keep in mind is that while the space will be changing, the Art Collection will not. Every single item that was in the Martin Reading Room remains easily accessible via the library catalog, and can be delivered from OGLC within 24 hours. Every. Single. Item.

Introduction

This guide is an introduction to art & art history resources available in the Northwestern University Libraries.  It presents some of the most useful print and digital resources, but is not a comprehensive listing of all the reference and research materials available at the NU Libraries.. 

For in depth help with locating particular types of information contact:the

Cara List, Art Librarian   cara.list@northwestern.edu     OR

Perry Nigro, Art Library Assistant,  perry.nigro@northwestern.edu.

The Northwestern University Art Library

The Art Library is located in two reading rooms, the Eloise R. Martin Reading Room and the Architecture Reading Room.  Bptj are located on the second floor of Deering Library.  The Martin Reading Room contains the larger portion of the collection with Library of Congress call numbers in the Ns, except for the NAs which cover architecture.  NAs are located in the Architecture Reading Room.  Some older materials have Dewey call numbers.  The Martin Reading Room collection is concentrated in the 700s, with the 720s located in the Architecture Reading Room.