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Guide to Digital Research in Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books: Visual Material

How to conduct manuscripts, archives, and rare books research using the online resources of The New York Public Library

Digital Collections


Digital Collections contains digitized images sourced from across all of the Library's research divisions and encompassing a wide range of formats.  Search by word or phrase, or browse a particular division or collection (e.g., the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the Rare Book Division, and the George Arents Collection).  Results can be narrowed by date, document type, division, and copyright status, among other criteria.  Selecting a result will display information about the original item's details and location, as well as options to download and print. 

If you would like to search specifically for images in the public domain (without any copyright restriction), you can set this parameter by clicking the search box, or as a filter within the search results screen.  For more on searching Digital Collections, click here.