To increase the accessibility to its services and collections, the Library & Archives will have a hybrid system of access and use of its resources which, while favouring the pre-booking, will allow direct access to the reading room by its readers, provided that the capacity of the room allows it.

In September 2021, the reading room of the Art Library and Gulbenkian Archives began to operate under the system of pre-booking for consultations. This method, already customary in some of the leading art libraries in the western world, was adopted as a way of ensuring greater sanitary control over the use of spaces, equipment and the works consulted.

While it is true that this regime is easily compatible with a planned and continuous use of the services and resources made available, which is common in research contexts, it is also true that, for those who use them only occasionally, it may be perceived as a barrier to access.

Thus, the Art Library and Gulbenkian Archives now opens the possibility of the coexistence of the two types of access, to meet the needs of all its readers.