Collections
The Library’s collections are interdisciplinary and support SUNY Purchase’s academic programs and curriculum. The collections include print books, ebooks, sound recordings, music scores, microforms, films in various formats, artists’ books, periodicals, serials, 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.
Digital Repository
The SUNY Purchase Digital Repository archives and provides access to the senior theses, master’s theses, and senior capstone projects of SUNY Purchase students. Projects from all majors (boards of study) are represented in the digital repository. Presently, the collection includes projects from Fall 2018 to Spring 2026.
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
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 the closed stacks 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.
Graphic Novels & Manga
Browse a growing collection of graphic novels and manga from all over the world, including both classic and contemporary titles. The Graphic Novels & Manga collection is located on the Library’s first floor and is shelved by title.
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 music and thousands of LPs of classical, jazz, opera, vocal performance, and experimental & electronic music.
Periodicals
The Periodicals Collection includes journals, magazine, and newspapers covering a variety of academic disciplines as well as general interest titles. Current periodicals are located on the Library’s second floor reading room and arranged by title. Bound Periodicals (issues that are two years and older) are shelved by call number in the Main Stacks. We also subscribe to many periodicals in electronic form via our databases.
Popular Reading Collection
Browse fiction, nonfiction, leisure reading, and bestsellers shelved 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.