Within its walls in the heart of Paris, the German Center for Art History houses a specialized library on German art, cultural, and scholarly history. It offers an overview of art theoretical literature on France as well as Franco-German artistic relations.

Additionally, the library supports the researchers at the center in their research projects on French art history. With thematic emphases such as questions of fashion, the history of art collecting, Bauhaus, and provenance research, it reflects the vitality of a spectrum of research spanning from the Middle Ages to the present.

A unique collection of art theoretical and aesthetic texts, composed of largely original editions, countless rarities and original editions from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, as well as digital collections and databases can be viewed in the reading room of the Hôtel Lully. Of the 144,000 resources currently available and the 193 circulating, primarily German-language journals, more than 80 percent are on display in the open stacks. In addition to the excellent research conditions provided by the DFK library, its close proximity to its partner libraries at the INHA, with which the library is linked through a cooperative agreement, as well as to the special collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), the Louvre, and the Centre Pompidou, are also of great advantage to visitors.

The forum is a member of the Art Libraries Network Florence-Paris-Munich-Rome, kubikat, whose world-renown online catalog represents the most comprehensive library database on art history. It currently comprises more than 2 million titles, 1 million of which are articles from scholarly journals, collected volumes, and online publications. The kubikat is in cooperation with the Bibliotheksverbund Bayern (BVB) and the Art Discovery Group Catalogue.