Collections
Purchase College Library’s collections are interdisciplinary and support the Purchase’s academic programs and curriculum. In addition to nearly a half of a million print volumes, the collections include ebooks, sound recordings, music scores, films, artists books, periodicals, and digital resources.
Art Book Collection
The Art Book Collection, housed on the Library’s second floor, holds over 260,000 books and journals about art, architecture, and design, with particular strength in 20th and 21st-century art and design. Other highlights include photography, early modern art, arts management and business, and a growing Latin American art collection.
eBooks
ebooks, or electronic books, can be accessed via the Library’s ebook databases. The Library subscribes to several large, interdisciplinary ebook collections that contain ebooks on variety of subjects from academic, professional, and trade publishers.
Film & Video
The Library’s film and video collection contains a variety of formats including DVDs, BluRay, 16mm, and streaming media. The collection includes films in all subjects and genre ranging from big box office titles, documentaries, independent films, and television series.
Government Documents
The Purchase College Library is a Congressionally-designated depository of U.S. Government publications, selecting about 15% of all items distributed by the Government Publishing Office. United States Government publications are shelved in two areas:
- The Reference Documents (i.e. Code of Federal Regulations, United States Code) and the most recent titles (2007-present) are in the area outside Technical Services, along the left corridor of the first floor
- Earlier titles (1970-2006) are located in a closed-stack on the Library’s lower level
Each section is arranged by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) number, a call number system derived from agency names.
Music Collection
The Music Collection, located through the glass doors on the first floor of the Library, houses the Library’s CDs, LP (vinyl) records, and music scores. All items in the Music collection serve the core curriculum of the Conservatory of Music. Thousands of scores present the classical and opera repertoire. Our recorded music holdings include over 9,000 CDs of classical, jazz, opera, pop & rock, hip hop and global musics and thousands of LPs of classical, jazz, opera, vocal performance, and experimental & electronic music.
Periodicals
The Periodicals Collection is comprised of journals, magazine, and newspapers covering a variety of academic disciplines as well as general interest titles. Current periodicals are located on the Library’s first floor and are arranged by subject and then title. Bound Periodicals (issues that are generally two years and older) are shelved by call number in their respective areas of the Library. We also subscribe to many periodicals in electronic form through our databases.
Popular Reading Collection
Browse fiction, nonfiction, leisure reading and bestsellers on the popular reading shelves located on the Library’s first floor.
Special Collections & Archives
The Special Collections and Archives, available by appointment, feature rare, out-of-print monographs and multi-volume sets, limited editions of seminal works in the fields of art, design, and photography, signed works of historical and political significance, and a teaching collection of artist books.