Collections

The Cleveland Institute of Art’s Gund Library is a library for visual artists. It supports the Institute’s mission of nurturing students’ intellectual, artistic, and professional development by providing a highly specialized on-site collection of materials for studio-intensive instruction and liberal art courses, connecting students with images and information beyond the Gund Library, and teaching students how to identify, find, and evaluate resources for their artistic development. The library documents the major participants, events, and trends of international contemporary art, photography, craft, and design; includes theory and technical information as well as visual resources for the Institute’s majors; and makes available a variety of professional, legal, and business information for artists. The library contains over 48,000 volumes, subscriptions to over 100 journals, and provides access to millions of digital images along with a variety of specialized art and design databases and full-text resources. It also includes a graphic novel collection, a pop-up book collection, a board game collection, the Institute’s archives, and an extensive collection of artists’ books. The library’s focus is international, and its collection of contemporary art books and exhibition catalogs ranks among the best American college libraries.

The Gund Library's nationally recognized collection of artists' books contains over 1,760 books from the 1960s to the present, is international in scope, and reflects the history of this dynamic art form since the genre’s emergence in the second half of the 20^th century. Click here for more information about our collection of artists’ books.

CIA faculty, students and staff have access to a wealth of digital images for educational purposes. ARTstor is a digital library of art images, associated descriptive information, and software tools designed to enhance teaching, learning, and scholarship. It contains millions of digital images of art, architecture and archaeology from a wide-range of cultures and time periods. Britannica’s ImageQuest also contains millions of rights cleared images covering the arts, humanities, and sciences. The library staff also uses JSTOR Forum to provide access to its local image collections through ARTstor, as well as providing access to other high-quality image resources. For more information about the library’s image collections, please contact Laura M. Ponikvar, Library Director, at 216.421.7442, or lponikvar@cia.edu.

The Gund Library participates in a local consortium that includes all of the libraries of Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives. These libraries share an online catalog, and CIA patrons may borrow from these partner libraries. The Gund Library also participates in OhioLINK, a statewide consortium of 121 academic libraries, owning nearly 50 million items. Through OhioLINK, Institute patrons may borrow materials from any member library and have access to over hundreds of multi-subject digital databases, many of which provide full text access, and a huge number of e-books, digital music files, and digital images.

In the summer of 2015, the Gund Library moved into a newly designed facility, centrally located within the Institute’s consolidated campus. The new library is attractive, functional, filled with original art, and ADA compliant. The facility offers excellent capacity for collection growth, includes two small meeting rooms, and has a robust technology infrastructure.