Free Coloring Books from 101 World-Class Libraries & Museums: Download and Color Hundreds of Free Images

The free, downloadable adult coloring books that the New York Academy of Medicine solicits from museums and university and state libraries for its #ColorOurCollections celebration each February enliven our month far more than any Valentine or Presidents Day sale.

They’re not just a great way to while away winter’s last gasp. They’re also a wonderful portal for discovering cultural institutions that have thusfar flown beneath our radar, owing to size, geography, and/or field of study.

It’s up to each institution to determine what – and how much – to include.

Some color inside the lines by sticking to the subject for which they’re best known. Most take more of a mixed bag approach, flinging a variety of fascinating, unrelated images at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Some offerings are but a single page. Others will have you wearing your crayons to nubs.

With 101 participating organizations, it can be difficult to know where to start.

Maybe we can help…

Is medicine your thing?

If so, you’re in luck. By our reckoning, that’s the most popular subject, though it spans a broad range, from line drawings of flowering medicinal plants and a reproduction of a 1998 American Society of Anesthesiologists coloring book for pediatric patients, to flayed cadavers and harrowing surgical vignettes from centuries gone by.

The pages below come compliments of Stanford Medical History Center’s Lane Library, McGill University’s Osler Library of the History of Medicine, and Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye, the only free, public museum dedicated to the fascinating science of sight.

Is architecture more your area of interest?

Glessner House, Western University, and the University of Barcelona have plans for you!

Does coloring make your nostalgic for childhood?

The South Carolina State Library, the University of Calgary, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have you covered with charming illustrations from Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Wonder Stories, Dr. Dolittle’s Circus, and Heroes of the Kalevala

Do you have only a few minutes to spare…or a preschooler in need of simpler graphics?

We get it, and so do the Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, the Bibliothèque municipale de Soissons, and the Harvard Art Museums.

It’s always a joy to see who’s behind the year’s freakiest image.

This year, our vote goes to the Bibliothèque Mazarine, France’s oldest public library, but feel free to put forth other candidates in the comments section

Begin your explorations of 2022’s coloring books here. See how others have colored these pages by exploring the hashtag #ColorOurCollections on social media.

2022’s Participating Institutions

New York Academy of Medicine Library

AIA Nashville Society & Nashville Parthenon

American Geographical Society Library – UW Milwaukee

Biblioteca de la Universidad de Zaragoza

Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de Santé – Université de Paris

Bibliothèque Les Champs Libres

Bibliothèque d’étude et de conservation de Besançon

La Bibliothèque Mazarine

Bibliothèque multimédia intercommunale d’Épinal

Bibliothèque municipale de Soissons

Bibliothèque nationale de France