Located on the main floor of the landmark Foundation Building, the Library provides support for the academic programs at The Cooper Union. The Library houses approximately 100,000 volumes of books and back issues of periodicals, and currently subscribes to over 300 periodicals. Electronic resources include Internet access and databases in many subject areas. In addition to the main collections, the Library also maintains the Cooper Archives, a Visual Resources Collection, and a selection of U.S. Government Documents.

The Cooper Union Library belongs to a consortium of academic libraries in the downtown Manhattan area, providing access for students and faculty to the resources at New York University's Bobst Library and the libraries of Parsons School of Design and The New School for Social Research. The Library also belongs to The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), a cooperative of over 300 libraries in the New York City area.

Cooper's librarians all hold M.S. degrees in Library Science, and have subject expertise in areas such as art, architecture, engineering and computer science. A professional librarian is always on duty at the Information Desk, to help guide users to the best information sources for their needs.

The Cooper Library maintains its own Web site at http://www.cooper.edu/facilities/library/library.html