Used primarily by students in the Parsons division of The New School, it was located in the Sheila Johnson Design Center, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

Prior to the merging of Parsons with The New School of Social Research in 1970,[1] the library had gone by the name Parsons Design Library.

In 1972, the library was renamed after donor Adam Gimbel, and in 1982 there was a re-dedication ceremony to honor both Adam and his wife Sophie.

[4] Gimbel was the second largest library at the university, with a total of 121,371 holdings.

[5] Current New School Libraries include: The majority of the Gimbel's old collections were migrated to the University Center Library by the end of 2013.