All the books at the Barber Fine Art Library are the property of the Henry Barber Trust and are reference only. This ensures that all items are available to library users unless actively being used by another reader on the premises. There is a substantial collection of loanable books on Art History Curating and Visual Studies in the Main Library.
Only a small proportion of our books are displayed in the Reading Room. Most of the books are kept in the Research Reserve – shown as RRART on FindIt@Bham. Please note the Barber Institute Prints and Drawings Study Room also houses a small number of rare books and manuscripts which do not belong to the library. For more information about these please see our Rare Books page.
The University of Birmingham online catalogue, FindIt@Bham, can be used to search the library’s book collection. Please see Searching the library for more information about the online catalogues available.
The Barber Fine Art Library has significant research collections, including:
- Printed books and pamphlets
- Exhibition catalogues and catalogues of permanent collections
- Auction (Sales) catalogues
- Catalogues raisonnés
- Periodicals
We also provide:
- e-books
- Online and print Periodicals
- Theses and dissertations
- Key reference tools such as encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and specialist resources such as catalogue raisonnés, and auctions (sale) catalogues
The Alice Schwab Collection
In 2002 The Barber Fine Art Library received 2,000 books from the estate of the late Alice Schwab, who came to Birmingham in 1937, as a refugee from the political situation in Germany. Most of the books were made available for loan, in keeping with the family’s wishes. The Alice Schwab books, along with other loanable books, were moved to the Main Library in 2016. They can be identified by special bookplates.
The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo
The Barbe
r Fine Art Library is proud to hold a set of the complete catalogue of the surviving portions of the Paper Museum which is was published by Royal Collection in twenty volumes. This sumptuous catalogue permits the Paper Museum to be studied easily for the first time since it was collected. The Paper Museum was the subject of the 2019 Barber exhibition 'The Paper Museum: the Curious Eye of Cassiano dal Pozzo.' This exhibition was a collaboration between the Barber and Royal Collection Trust co-curated by MA Art History and Curating students.
List of volumes
The volumes are not shelved together. They are dispersed around the library catalogued according to subject.