As one of the major art reference libraries in the United States, the Museum Library houses approximately 200,000 books, auction catalogues, and periodicals dating from the sixteenth century to the present. Reflecting the Museum's rich and distinctive collections, the Library's holdings focus on European, American, and Asian painting and sculpture; furniture and decorative arts; arms and armor; costume and textiles; prints, drawings, and photographs; and modern and contemporary art. The Library also subscribes to a growing collection of electronic resources, available on workstations in the Reading Room.

Books for children can be examined in several lights--we might consider their lessons in morality or language, or we might discuss printing processes or changing attitudes about childhood. However, the serendipitous collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Library can show us something else: little-known children’s book illustrations by artists with full careers in other forms of art or other fields. This installation celebrates the pictures themselves as well as the circumstances that brought these artists’ works into the hands of their youngest connoisseurs.