Print Collection > Researching Prints

Tips for finding prints and other graphic
materials in CATNYP

Graphic materials throughout The New York Public Library’s Research Libraries, including a few limited selections from the Print Collection (see below), have been catalogued in CATNYP. To find these materials among the books and other formats, try the following:

• Complete a search, for example by subject, or author
• Click on “Limit this Search” at the top of the screen
• From the “Format” pull-down menu, select “Photographs, Prints, Graphics”

Any resulting records will describe graphic materials. The Location will indicate where the items are within the library, i.e. “Humanities – Prints” for the Print Collection.

The Description will indicate number, technique, and overall size of the items. For most Print Collection records, individual titles are listed in the Contents field.

Prints and drawings from the Print Collection cataloged in CATNYP

• 19th-century French etchings in the S.P. Avery Collection
• Emmet Collection, illustrations of early American history

Some bound volumes of prints also appear in CATNYP. However, because they have been catalogued as books, they do not turn up under the limitation “Photographs, Prints, Graphics,” but rather in a normal search by author, subject, title, etc.

Note: The majority of the Print Collection’s close to 200,000 prints are catalogued in unique files in the Prints and Photographs Study Room.