About

Collections at the Kohler

Scope:  The Kohler Art Library covers a broad range of traditional and non-Western art history and the making of art.  The subjects covered include painting, drawing, architecture, sculpture, graphic arts, photography, and decorative arts.  The types of materials include monographs, periodicals, exhibition catalogs, museum guides and collection catalogues, sales and auction catalogues, catalogues raisonnes, oeuvres catalogues, Festschriften, and a growing array of electronic resources and image databases such as ARTstor.

Reference works:  An extensive art reference collection includes art bibliographies, dictionaries of art terminology, biographical dictionaries, exhibition records and histories, encyclopedias, directories of museums and galleries, iconography reference books, signature and monogram identifications, and auction record indexes, among many other types of resources.

Circulating collections:  regular stacks and oversize stacks
Non-circulating collections:  locked, cage, flat, 160a, audiovisual, reference

Size: The Kohler Art Library is considered a large public art library.  Its holdings include over 155,000 volumes, approximately 460 journal titles, and a collection of over 250 art-related videos, interactive CD-ROMs, and DVDs.  The collection also includes photo archives and periodicals on microform, and a small pamphlet file on art subjects.

Areas of strength, all of which complement research and teaching in the Art History and Art Departments include: 

  • over 800 handmade artists’ books representing 150 presses and artists [more...];
  • illuminated manuscript facsimiles such as the Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, the Joshua Roll, the Vienna Genesis, and the Gospel Book of Otto III;
  • Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School;
  • twentieth-century German and Austrian art;
  • African art;
  • medieval art and architecture;
  • contemporary Chinese art; and
  • decorative arts, especially ceramics and furniture. 

Digital art collections that have been developed in-house include: