Highly Idiosyncratic and Only Half Trained: The Institute of Fine Arts Libraries and Art History in the United States

The history of the Institute of Fine Arts library collections cannot be disentangled from the intellectual and physical history of the Institute itself. Housed in various locations since 1938, the collections have grown parallel to the interests of the IFA’s faculty, many of whom, in its early years, were exiles from Europe and brought different approaches to the study of art. Amidst New York’s array of outstanding art research libraries, the IFA’s once extremely modest collection now comprises some 175,000 volumes, divided between two libraries: the Chan Library (for art history and archaeology) and the Conservation Center Library.