"...if you are in need of recharging your batteries...you have only to step into the library."
Juan Carlos Esguerra '73, Colombian statesman and former ambassador to the United States
The Cornell University Library (CUL) system comprises 20 member libraries that together form one of the 10 largest research libraries in North America. With over 7 million printed volumes in its collections, nearly 65,000 journal and periodical subscriptions, more than 100,000 sound recordings, and nearly a quarter of a million maps, CUL provides an intellectual backbone to the university's scholarly and research activities. CUL is a national leader in the incorporation of electronic and wireless technologies into traditional library facilities and services.
Explore the Library
The Cornell Law School Library
- Cornell University Library Gateway
- CUL's front door on the Web, the Gateway provides its users with online access to one of the world's largest research libraries.
- Cornell Libraries
- A list of libraries that make up the CUL system
- CUL Catalog
- The fully functional CUL online catalog
- CUL Digital Initiatives
- A look into CUL's leading digital efforts
Got a research question? Ask a librarian!
Cornell's Art Museum
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Designed by I.M. Pei, the Johnson Art Museum houses the university's art collection, begun in 1880 by Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White. The museum is itself a small masterpiece, with stunning views of Cayuga Lake, the campus, and Ithaca.
The Johnson Museum's permanent collection consists of more than 30,000 works of art. In addition to an outstanding Asian collection, its greatest strength is in European and American prints, drawings, and photographs, presenting the history of graphic art from the 15th century to the present. American painting and sculpture, European art from ancient Greece to the present, African sculpture and textiles, and pre-Columbian sculpture and ceramics are also well represented.
The museum curates many exhibitions of an eclectic nature every year. In addition, the museum is in the process of digitizing the entire collection to make it available online for study and research.
The Johnson Museum is open to the public and admission is free.
Our Collections
Rare and Manuscript Collections
In the lower floors of Kroch Library, RMC has everything from cuneiform tablets to 20th-century masterpieces in its 300,000-volume collection. In additon, RMC holds more than 70 million manuscripts and another million photographs, paintings, prints, and other visual media. RMC's collection has strengths in every historical period and every region of the world. Many of its holdings have been digitized and are accessible online.
Other Collections of Note
- Cornell Plantations
- Diverse living plant collections and natural features that delight and educate Cornell students and visitors of all ages
- Kinematics Models for Design Digital Library
- Features models designed by German engineering professor Franz Reuleaux (1829 - 1905)
- The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds
- The world's largest archive of animal sounds and associated video -- contains 160,000 recordings covering 5,600 species of birds
- The Department of Textiles and Apparel Costume Collection
- Includes more than 9,000 items of apparel from the 18th century to the present
- The Kheel Center
- The most venerable labor archive in North America, contains historical documents tracing the history of the labor movement in the United States
- The Human Sexuality Collection
- One of the nation's most extensive collections on United States lesbian and gay history
- Cornell University Insect Collection
- With over 200,000 species represented, the CUIC provides a worldwide view of insect diversity essential for comparative studies in phylogenetics and taxonomy
- Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates
- One million fish, 45,000 birds, 3,200 eggs, and 15,000 each of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, many dead for hundreds of years and some now extinct
- Cornell Plant Pathology Herbarium (CUP)
- North America's fourth largest collection of fungi. Over 400,000 specimens and 60,000 historic photographs support research in the biodiversity and taxonomy of fungi and also the various organisms that cause diseases of plants.
- Bailey Hortorium Herbarium
- One of the largest university-affiliated collections of preserved plant material in North America. It includes Cornell's Wiegand Herbarium (CU), which was merged with BH in 1977. The combined herbaria now number approximately 845,000 specimens of algae, bryophytes, and vascular plants.
- The Cornell Brain Collection (not online)
- Seventy human brains preserved in glass jars, including 14 brains of prominent people and 12 brains of less known or infamous people. Believed to be the first collection of its kind in the United States