Conservation for Cultural Heritage Collections: Museums, Libraries and Archives: Introduction

This guide has been created to assist with research in the fields of art conservation and technical art history.

Tilly Kettle, Dancing Girl 1772 and X-Ray of painting

It has been organized according to material type and resource type, with more specific materials and resources provided in sub-pages. Additional pages feature selected online and print resources, databases, and research strategies that are useful when conducting research in this field. It is important to remember that art conservation and technical art history often require cross-disciplinary approaches to research, so many resources provided on one page will also be relevant for mediums and topics found throughout this guide. 

Kraig Binkowski
Chief Librarian, Reference Library and Archives



The Reference Library and Archives are located on the second floor of the Center, 1080 Chapel Street. We are open to the public and an appointment is not needed to use the collections. The Library is non-circulating and holds materials in a variety of formats supporting the study of British art and culture, with a focus on British art of the 17th century to the present and is ideally positioned to facilitate research in British history of art.

The Reference Collections are now accessible alongside the art collections of the Center. From the Center's newly designed website, the all collection search function brings relevant reference materials together with works of art from the collection. Additionally, the entire holdings of the Reference Library are represented in Orbis, Yale's online catalogue. In this manner, the Reference Library collections can be accessed in relation to the wide breadth of all the library collections at Yale.

The Yale Center for British Art Reference Library has developed a specialized group of resources focused specifically on technical art history and conservation. The Conservation Collection is housed on the second floor (ranges 19-21) of the Reference Library and Archives and consists of monographs and serials related to art conservation, technical art history, preservation and museum studies. Orbis records will indicate materials are in Conservation within the location field [ex. BRITISH ART CENTER, Reference Lib., Conservation (Non-Circ)]. All materials listed in this guide that are located in the conservation section include 'Conservation' at the end of the call number. All resources provided can be located at the YCBA Reference Library and Archives, unless otherwise noted.  

Check out the following links for great videos on art and conservation!