Where to start
We are in the process of consolidating our Library, Archive and Museum collections into a single Collections catalogue portal. Until this work is complete you can also use the links below to access our Library catalogue or to search for our Manuscripts, Paintings and some of our Museum objects in external databases.
We also have additional handlists and finding aids available in the Library at Burlington House.
Please contact staff for more information if you cannot find what you are looking for online.
The Library at Burlington House
Search here for:
- Printed books, ephemeral publications and offprints
- Periodical titles
- E-resources (Fellows only), including indexed journal articles, by logging in to the catalogue and selecting ‘All resources’ from the drop-down menu in the search bar.
Our brief guide to the Library catalogue [PDF] outlines the main features of the catalogue and how to search for e-resources. Please note that many of our e-journals are restricted access to Fellows only.
Our printed holdings are also searchable in the ETSC and Library Hub Discover (formerly COPAC).
Search our records via The National Archives ‘Discovery’ catalogue (see our archival repository entry in TNA for a general overview). We have over 1000 manuscripts dating from the tenth to the twentieth centuries, with material on antiquities, local history and heraldry.
The Society’s archives date from 1717 and include minute books, correspondence, papers read at meetings and proposal papers for Fellows. We are currently in the process cataloguing the archive and making more records discoverable online, but if you are looking for something specific, please contact the archives at [email protected].
Visit the Art UK website to browse all the paintings on display at Burlington House and at Kelmscott Manor.
Search here for a selection of drawings and museum objects. You can find information on a wide variety of over 600 objects from our Museum collection here, as well as drawings from albums compiled by the Society in the 1840s.
St Thomas Becket Casket
The Library also has one of the largest collections of topographical, archaeological and architectural drawings in the country, consisting of around 20,000 drawings as well as a substantial number of prints. However, these are not yet searchable online.
You can view scanned images of the Subject Index cards here, searchable by subject heading. If you are searching for older periodical material, you might find this useful, as this index (around 570,000 cards) contains references to all books and periodical articles accessioned by the Library until 1988 (when we moved to electronic cataloguing).
