The Helen Topping Architecture and Fine Arts Library (in memory of Helen Elizabeth Topping, 1910-1989, wife of fomer USC president Norman Topping) is located in the lower level of Ray and Nadine Watt Hall, designed by Killingsworth, Brady, and Associates in 1973. The original building is a heavy, exposed concrete pavilion. In 1990 the library was expanded to include an atrium reading room with an exterior patio. Of special note are the square and triangular compositional elements.

Completed by Ellerbe Becket and Graeme Morland, a distinguished School of Architecture professor at USC, the library features the Alson Clark main Reading Room, the Harry and Della MacDonald Periodicals Library, the John Stauffer Atrium, and the Torrey H. Webb Rare Books Reading Room. The Library now houses over 75,000 volumes dedicated to the studies of art history and architecture, and a notable collection of rare titles, including an important set of bound Piranesi etchings. The Standish K. Penton Slide Collection comprises over 300,000 slides, including a small collection of original fin-de-siècle lantern slides. Recently the library has begun acquiring architectural drawings, artists' books and an important collection of architectural photographs by the prominent photographer Julius Shulman.

The physical area of the AFA Library is a lovely sunlit space for specialized research and general study. However, the meaning of architectural space in the traditional sense has changed in light of new digital technologies which make accessable more and more information via the Internet. Some art and architecture classes have Web sites, and many indexes and journals are available electronically, as well. However, much of research-level material is still published in paper, and most older resources (generally published before the 1980s) are available in print format only.