Images Copyright: J. Paul Getty Trust. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute.
The general library collections (secondary sources) include over one million volumes of books, periodicals, and auction catalogs. The literature of art history, the methods and materials of artistic production, and conservation are core areas of the holdings in classical antiquities, medieval and Renaissance art, sculpture and the decorative arts, prints and drawings, and photography. The conservation collection includes more than 45,000 titles and 60,000 volumes of primary and secondary sources related to the conservation, management, and protection of cultural property from paintings to architecture.
The Photo Study Collection contains approximately two million study photographs of art and architecture from the ancient world through the 20th century. The library also maintains a copy of the Princeton Index of Christian Art, an iconographic index of Early Christian and medieval art objects. The Research Library supports its own conservation laboratory dedicated to the preservation of Research Institute collection materials, and is home to the Getty Institutional Archives.