Explore Collections
The Arts and Special Collections Research Center’s general collections include music, visual arts, books, journals, and media collections.
Recognized as one of the most distinguished fine arts collections in the Southwest, the Center boasts a collection of approximately 116,000 printed music scores, 54,000 print fine arts books, and 75,000 audio and video recordings. In addition to these print resources, the libraries host thousands of e-books and e-journals, and over 800 databases.
Special collections, which are unique and rare items, range from the 4th century to the present. With over 48,000 volumes, the collection covers a wide range of disciplines in rare books, manuscripts, books arts, scholars’ libraries, archives, early printed music and more.
Finding Collections
OneSearch
For general collections and materials in our rare collections, a great place to start your research is on our main library page with OneSearch. OneSearch is the place to discover physical items in the Baylor Libraries, as well as most of the online content that we provide for your use. It is designed primarily for keyword searching, but also provides the ability to search by title, author, or subject. If you are looking for something specific, you can use OneSearch for that too--see the Advanced Search page.
For additional information, check out our FAQs and Glossary.
BARD
While our archival finding aids can be found in OneSearch, you can locate more information on our archives by searching in the Baylor Archival Repositories Database (BARD).
Digital Collections
Some of our collections have been digitized and are located in the Baylor Digital Collections.
Our Rare Collections Research Portal highlights some of our digitized rare collections organized into easy-to-navigate topics.
Borrow, Request, Renew
For use of our general collections, you can locate loan periods, how to renew online, course reserve links, and other information on this webpage.
More Information
If you need help getting started, visit our research guides.
- Art History (https://libguides.baylor.edu/arthistory)
- Music (https://libguides.baylor.edu/musicresearch)
- Theatre Arts (https://libguides.baylor.edu/theater)
If you would like to look at some of our rare materials or meet with someone to explore collections please schedule a visit.
Keep up with news and updates on the Connect with Arts and Special Collections Research Center Blog