Behind the scenes: Curatorial Libraries at the V&A

Frequent visitors to the National Art Library (NAL) will undoubtedly have heard of the multiple levels of storage behind the public facing reading room needed to house our immense collections. A few lucky individuals may have even visited these stores during a tour held on one of our library’s Discovery Days, and seen first-hand how many spaces in which we store our books. What is less well known about, however, are the libraries belonging to the various curatorial departments of the V&A, that the NAL provides access to.

What is a Curatorial Library?

These libraries have been built up by museum curators and members of staff working within their departments. This is done to ensure their easy access to information needed for various reasons: acquiring new objects, appraising them, and researching their historical significance and place within our museum. They are called Curatorial Libraries, as they have been carefully curated by the different departments to suit their needs; after all, a Textiles and Fashion curator wanting to appraise a wedding gown from 1960 would have little use for a book about Victorian furniture! Whilst the NAL works hard to ensure that all the V&A’s collection areas are well represented in our own collection, the Curatorial Libraries allow departments to collect more specific and specialised information.

Why are they important to the V&A?

As many of the books within these departments are there precisely because the NAL does not have them, it was decided that these collections were valuable not only to members of staff, but to the public as well. As the mission of the V&A is to make our collections as accessible as possible, it was only natural that providing access to these specialist departmental collections would fall within the remit of the NAL. The responsibility for the retrieval of these items falls upon the NAL Apprentices, as it provides the opportunity to learn as much about the V&A’s collections as it does about librarianship.

Why are they important to our readers?

In addition to retrieval, the Apprentices work alongside the departments and the library collections team to add these items to the NAL’s online catalogue. This allows our readers to browse and request items from our collection. Most recently, we have been working on increasing the access to the Textile and Fashion Curatorial Library, cataloguing hundreds of new books not held within the NAL, which allows anybody with an NAL library card to read them.

The quest to add all the Curatorial Libraries’ collections to the online catalogue has been ongoing for several years, and is worked on by the departments themselves, volunteers, and NAL staff members. Currently, the Curatorial Libraries that are available to access through the NAL catalogue are as follows: Ceramics, East Asia, Furniture and Woodwork, Middle East, Sculpture, South & Southeast Asia, and Textile and Fashion. The collections of these Curatorial Libraries are rich and varied, and as one of the library Apprentices, I count myself fortunate to be able to work closely with the many departments of the V&A and their collections. Furthermore, it’s amazing to work in an organisation that prioritises public access, particularly to the treasure-trove of information that the Curatorial Libraries hold.

How can I access these items?

Items from Curatorial Libraries require a little more time to deliver to readers than the bulk of our collection. Most items requested have a retrieval time of up to 90 minutes, although many readers will be aware that it is often much faster than this! However, as the Curatorial Libraries are located across the South Kensington site, and may already be in use by staff, readers will have to wait for up to two working days to see their items. Details on how to request items through our online catalogue, for the main library collections and the Curatorial Libraries, can be found here: How to search and request material 2025-06-16.pdf.