Founded in 1997, the Humanity Library (formerly known as the Reference Room of Guangdong Museum of Art), covering an area of 230 square meters. It mainly provides information search and reading service for its own staff and external professional researchers. Over the past dozens of years, the Reference Room attached great importance to the collection and filtration of reference books, newspapers and magazines, and history books relating to art, especially materials relating to Guangdong's art history in the 20th century. In so far, the Reference Room has more than 40,000 books and documentations with respect to China's contemporary and modern art, including about 1,000 rare editions, through collection, purchase, donation, and exchange.

As the first "Library of Art" open to the public in China, the Humanity Library focuses on its nature of serving the public and has been upgrading itself from an institution that simply provides reading service to the one that provides open, comprehensive, professional, and quality information service to general audience, scholars and experts, and artists and art fans, as well as international art institutions, while providing information resources for the research, exhibition and collection by Guangdong Museum of Art.

The Humanity Library is divided into two floors, covering 1,000 square meters. Its second floor directly connects to the exhibition hall so that audiences may have a convenient access. On its second floor are "Public Reading Area", "Staff Reading Area", "Guangdong Art Museum and provincial Zhongshan library build a library". The special collection room is on its third floor, including "Huang Zhijian Library", "Tsuruta Takeyoshi Library", "Sha Fei Library", and "Yang Quan Library".