Yale's Arts Library, linking Rudolph Hall and the Loria Center at 180 and 190 York Street, serves as the primary collection for the study of art, architecture, and drama at Yale. The Arts Library contains approximately 150,000 onsite volumes including important reference works, monographs, exhibition catalogs, and print periodicals, as well as digital resources, including online periodicals, article indexes, and databases. Arts Library Special Collections features artists' books and volumes on the book arts, fine printing, typography, and illustration, as well as archival materials and thesis projects from the Schools of Art, Architecture, and Drama. An additional 300,000+ volumes are stored in the offsite Library Shelving Facility for quick delivery to any Yale Library via Eli Express.

Today's Arts Library Hours

Gifted to the Arts Library in 1971 by color expert Faber Birren, the Birren Collection of Books on Color is a comprehensive collection of resources on color theory, standards, and color nomenclature. The collection comprises historical volumes and manuscripts, contemporary and popular publications, textile samples, paint chips, photographs, and artist publications. It has materials on vision, psychology, printing and the graphic arts, music, religion, biology, medicine, heraldry, and the occult. Materials range from the 16th to the 21st centuries and include significant texts by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Moses Harris, M.E. Chevreul, and G.B. Greenough, as well as unique and limited-edition artists' books. 

Image: Atlas of the Munsell color system, (Folio ND1493 M8 M86 1915 (LC)), Robert B. Haas Arts Library, Yale University Library.