 Upon retirement, she had her entire library shipped to the Matenadaran in Yerevan, so as to better help Armenian scholars in their studies.Shortly after her death in 1989, an endowment fund for prospective art history students in Armenia, Fonds Sirarpie Der Neressian at the Institut de Recherches sur les Miniatures Arméno-Byzantines, was created in her honor.Der Nersessian's work primarily concerned Armenian art history, including the study of church architecture, illuminated manuscripts, miniatures and sculpture.