London and the rest of the UK
Library Hub Discover will find you books in other libraries in the UK (plus Dublin).
This screenshot shows suggested options to choose from the Advanced Search screen for finding a specific catalogue:
Library Hub Discover does not tell you which of the libraries it lists you can access. For this info see:
Alternatively, search an individual library:
British Library
A substantial collection of catalogues. Here you can access two important databases: Art Sales Catalogues Online and SCIPIO.
British Library page about sales catalogues
temporary British Library catalogue: coverage of sales catalogues unknown
SIA guide to this library
Eduardo Paolozzi, Newton (1995) at the British Library.
© cropped version of image by Amanda Watson on Flickr. Licence for this image
National Art Library (NAL)
Near-complete runs of auction catalogues from Sotheby's and Christie's, plus substantial numbers of catalogues from Phillips, Bonhams, China Guardian and many other auction houses. They can be searched for via their catalogue. Also substantial runs of annotated sales catalogues which do not appear in their catalogue. You can also access many the important database Art Sales Catalogues Online, which incorporates Lugt's Répertoire. Their page about sales catalogues research is extremely useful (link below).
NAL guide to online resources about sales
NAL guide to printed resources about sales
NAL catalogue
NAL instructions for finding sales catalogues (go to page 5 of the document, = page 6 of the PDF)
SIA guide to this library
Courtauld Institute of Art
Another good collection. Most of the Courtauld's sales catalogues do not appear in the library catalogue, so feel free to contact them if you suspect they may have something you need.
Courtauld page about sales catalogues
Courtauld library catalogue
SIA guide to this library
SOAS
Sotheby's and Christie's Asian art catalogues, from their salesrooms in London, New York and Hong Kong. In particular, worth checking for Hong Kong catalogues unavailable elsewhere. Some Poly catalogues also kept. Note: you can only make three free visits to the library each year.
SOAS library homepage
SOAS library catalogue
SIA guide to this library
Still can't track down the catalogue you need? Many art libraries, museums and other institutions have collections of catalogues which are not listed online. So you may want to approach likely institutions to ask if they have what they need. Feel free to contact the SIA librarians for help.
Libraries worldwide
WorldCat will find you books in other libraries worldwide. Coverage is uneven; e.g. there are some major African cities with no libraries included. Again, it is not possible to search for sales catalogues specifically.
The SIA librarians will help you find books and access libraries anywhere in the world: though please note our knowledge of many countries is limited.