The Cooper Union Archives & Special Collections

Do I need an appointment to visit the Archives?

The Cooper Union Archives & Special Collections is open Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm (Mon-Thurs in the summer). While we do accept walk-ins, it's recommended that you make an appointment to ensure the availability of materials.

Can I bring a class to the Archives?

Absolutely! We are happy to work with faculty and adjunct instructors to develop class visits tailored to meet learning objectives. Examples of materials that have been used by classes include the records of the School of Design for Women (art history, women's history); annual reports and student newspapers (institutional history, student politics); color slides of student shows (art practice, curation); documentation of Great Hall events (New York City, civic life); and Peter Cooper's patents (invention, science history). If you'd like an instruction session, please make an appointment.

How do I get to the Archives?

The Cooper Union Archives & Special Collections are housed in the mezzanine of the Cooper Union Library, located in the Foundation Building at the triangle intersection of 3rd Avenue, 4th Avenue, and 7th Street in downtown Manhattan. If you see the Astor Place cube, you know you're close!

The Archives have their own adjacent reading room for researchers to spend time with archival material. Unfortunately, this room is not currently ADA accessible, but we are more than happy to serve archival materials to researchers in the library on the ground floor as needed. Please contact us at archives@cooper.edu if you have questions or concerns about accessibility and the Archives. 

Anything else I need to know before I go?

Glad you asked! There are a few quirks of archival research that it's handy to be prepared for, such as:

• You are welcome to use pencils, notepads, laptops, or tablets. You can not bring pens, food, drink, or gum into the reading room. 
• Photographs are allowed for research purposes. If you would like to use an image from the Archive in a published work, please contact archives@cooper.edu for information on rights and permissions.
• Scans of archival material are made on a case-by-case basis. Some of our material is too fragile to submit to a scanner, and we reserve the right to refuse to scan certain collections.