The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries' collecting of books for practicing artists began in 1879, when students were assessed a $2 fee for library acquisitions. By 1885, the library contained more than 200 items, including manuals on anatomy, architecture, color, perspective, and proportion.

The Catalogue of the School Library, published in 1885, lists Julien Fau's The Human Body among the titles available to students. This title was a required text in the course on anatomy that all students at the school had to pass. In 1893, the School of the Art Institute collaborated with the Armour Institute of Technology to establish an architecture program, and the library began collecting to support this curriculum, purchasing titles such as Practical Lessons in Architectural Drawing.

By 1897, when the Director of the Art Institute, W. M. R. French, described the curriculum of the School of the Art Institute in Brush & Pencil, the library contained 1,700 works to support the school's programs. Martin Ryerson's 1901 donation for the establishment of a library and Daniel Burnham's 1912 bequest for an architectural library allowed the libraries to continue to collect materials for working artists and students and to promote the library collections to these groups through publications such as the Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago and The Art Student.

In 1917, the libraries served as the venue for a lecture by George W. Eggers on “Books and the Student of Art.” Eggers, Director of the Art Institute, advised students that “The library supplies the background of world experience which becomes the vehicle by which your imagination goes forth,” and encouraged artists to seek out the books that “are the familiar and classic forms the world knows, and which your light must illuminate in a new way, if you are to have a place in the art of the nation.”

1. Art Institute of Chicago. Catalogue of School Library. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1885.
2. Fau, Julien. Elementary Artistic Anatomy of the Human Body. London: Balliere, Tindall, and Cox, 188_.
3. Tuthill, William Burnett. Practical Lessons in Architectural Drawing. New York: William T. Comstock, 1881.
4. French, W. M. F. “The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.” Brush & Pencil. Vol. 1, No. 2 (Nov. 1897) pages 34-44.
5. Shattuck, Walter F. and William K. Fellows. “The Chicago School of Architecture.” Brush & Pencil. Vol. 2, No. 1 (April, 1898) pages 9-14.
6. Eggers, George W. “Books and the Student of Art.” The Art Student. (Jan. 1917) pages 19-21.