Art + Architecture Library
Electronic Resources
Art History
BIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES
General Resources | African-American Resources | American Resources | Women Resources | Other Subjects
DICTIONARIES
- A Biographical Dictionary of Artists (available through xrefer)
This dictionary includes inforamtion on over 1300 international artists. Entries include dates, training, career highlights, and influences on prominent painters, architects, and sculptors. This dictionary includes information on Asian and African artists as well. Numerous entries include suggestions for further reading.
- The Bloomsbury Guide to Art (available through xrefer)
The focus on this guide is Western art and architecture. Entries include artists, terminology, concepts, mythological and religious subjects, and symbols. Unique to this resource are entries on countries and their cultural significance and essays on significant individual works. Essays include extensive cross-referencing and bibliographies.
- Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (available through Oxford Reference Online)
This dictionary covers the history of Western Art, from Ancient Greece to the present. The resource provides definitions for artistic periods, movements, techniques, and styles, as well as biographical information on artists, critics, and historians. Entries range from short paragraphs to lenghty discussions on major artists and artistic periods.
- Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms (available through Oxford Reference Online)
With over 1800 entries, this resource provides the definitions for terms related to visual media. Entries range from 2-3 sentences to longer paragraphs.
- Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art (available through Oxford Reference Online)
This dictionary provides definitions on numerous mediums in the 20th century, including painting, sculpture, and graphic arts. Information is provided on movements and styles, art schools, galleries, exhibitions, prizes, terms, techniques, collectors, critics, dealers, and patrons. "And, although concentrating on the great names, it is not confined to the mainstream of modern art, and features many of the interesting figures at the periphery of modern art."
- Grove Dictionary of Art Online
The Dictionary of Art Online is a fully searchable copy of the print dictionary, including some but not all of the illustrations and photographs in the print version. The online dictionary provides an image search for images from the Bridgeman Art Library and also links to images elsewhere on the internet. Types of searches include an Article Search, which performs a search for an article on a specific topic, and a full text search which searches the entire text of the articles.
- Oxford Companion to Western Art (available through Oxford Reference Online)
Covering artists from the classical period to the 20th century, this resource also includes information on Western styles and movements, art forms, and art terms. The 2600 in-depth entries also include bibliographies when appropriate.
- Oxford Dictionary of Art (available through Oxford Reference Online)
This dictionary is a comprehensive resource on Western Art. With over 3800 entries, the dictionary provides information on artists, museums, movements, and styles. As suggested by the title, the entries in this resource tend to be longer than those in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists.
- Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms (available through Oxford Reference Online)
With over 2000 entries, this dictionary provides definitions of terms related to both Western and Non-Western art. Subjects covered include painting, sculpture, architecture, photography and decorative, applied, and graphic arts. Numerous entries are illustrated. Cross-referencing within the resource and to other title exists.
- The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists (available through Oxford Reference Online)
The 2500 entries in this dictionary include definitions of artists, paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, schools, techniques, materials, and writers. Entries are extensively cross-referenced. Entries range from 1-2 paragraphs to longer essays.
- The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of British Art (available through Oxford Reference Online)
This dictionary focuses strictly on British Art from the Anglo-Saxons to the present day. Mediums discussed include painting, sculpture, printmaking, and decorative arts. Information is provided on artists, schools, concepts, techniques, institutions, patronage and art criticism. This resources is heavily cross-referenced and includes full bibliographies. The dictionary includes a gazetteer of collections with British Art holdings.
E-BOOKS
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
FINDING AIDS
IMAGE RESOURCES
- AICT (Art Images for College Teaching)
AICT is a royalty-free image exchange resource for the educational community. Art and architecture images are grouped into the following categories: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque, 18th - 20th Century, and Non-Western. Though not comprehensive, it offers very useful examples of architectural themes and periods.
- ARTstor
ARTstor is an image database and presentation tool, which currently contains approximately 300,000 digital images. By 2006, it is expected to contain over 500,000. The image collections in ARTstor cover architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, and many other forms of visual materials. All periods and many cultures are represented.
- Associated Press Photo Archive
Image database of over one million primary-source photos from the 1840s to date. The AP Photo Archive is update daily. Every photo contains a complete caption and citation information. Though not specific to architecture, it features great images of buildings, monuments, construction, etc.
- Bridgeman Art Library
Commerical database with thousands of images; covers every subject, concept, style and medium. In addition to Fine Arts, the Bridgeman also covers antiques, maps, architecture, furniture, glass, ceramics, and anthropological artefacts.
- Corbis
This commecial image database features hundreds of thousands of images to be licensed. It is handy for a quick image reference, i.e., "I need a picture of a waterfall". All images are watermarked. The five main categories of images are: historical images, commercial images, news, sports and entertainment, portraiture, and editorial.
- d'ART: Internet Art Database
Commercial resource which features contributions from thousands of artists, collectors, and dealers. Includes images of artwork for sale. Useful for researching the working artist.
- Digital Library Cross Collection
The Beinecke Digital Collections, Arts of the Book Ephemera Collection, Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection and the Visual Resources Digital Collection can be searched simultaneously using the Digital Library Cross-Collection Search.
- Getty Images
From news and sports photography to contemporary and archival imagery, Getty Images’ products are found each day in newspapers, magazines, advertising, films, television, books and websites.There are loads of collections and while you can download certain images, the quality is poor
- Index to Christian Art
An image index, produced at Princeton University, that presently provides access to complex information on approximately 200,000 photographic reproductions of Christian art in the east and west from early apostolic times up to 1400 A.D.
- New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Spanning a wide range of visual media, NYPL Digital Gallery offers thousands of digital images of drawings, illuminated manuscripts, maps, photographs, posters, prints, rare illustrated books, and more. Encompassing the subject strengths of the vast collections of the Research Libraries, these materials represent the applied sciences, fine and decorative arts, history, performing arts, and social sciences. Collections cover artworks and objects, creators, dance, design, furniture, motion pictures, music, ornament, performance, spectacle, theatre, advertising, book binding, dust jackets, friendship books, menus, post cards, posters, trade and greeting cards.
- Yale University Manuscripts and Archives Digital Images Databases
This database contains digital reproductions of photographs, posters, drawings, text documents, and other images taken from the research collections of Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. These images comprise only a small percentage of the department's holdings, being those requested by departmental patrons over the past several years.
INDEXES TO ARTICLES
- Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for more than 3,600 scholarly publications, including more than 2,700 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 4,500 journals in the collection and an image collection. This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more.
- Alternative Press Index
The Alternative Press Index and its archive, covering 1969 - present, are widely regarded as the leading guide to the alternative press in North America. Citations are drawn from roughly 250 alternative, radical, and left publications, that report and analyze the practices and theories of cultural, economic, political, and social change. API indexes such important periodicals as: Cineaste, Environmental Action, Socialist Review, and Women's Review of Books. 90% of the publications indexed in API are unique; you won't find them indexed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature or the Social Sciences Index. Approximately 17,000 new records (some with abstracts) are added each year.
Major topics include: African-American Studies, ethnic & racial studies, feminism, gay/lesbian studies, community organizing, ecology, labor studies, social theory, socialism, alternative organizations, anarchism, prisons, indigenous people's rights, internationalism.
- Art Full Text
Art Full Text is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Full-text coverage for selected periodicals is also included. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. In addition to articles, Art Full Text indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals. Indexing coverage begins 1984; abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. The abstracts range from 50 to 300 words and describe the content and scope of the source articles. Full-text coverage begins in 1997.
- Art Index Retrospective
Art Index Retrospective is a bibliographic database that cumulates citations to Art Index volumes 1-32 of the printed index published between 1929-1984. The database cites articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. In addition to articles, Art Index Retrospective indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals. Subjects covered include: Advertising Art, Antiques, Archaeology, Architecture and Architectural History, Art History, Crafts, Decorative Arts, Folk Art, Graphic Arts, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Motion Pictures, Museology, Non-Western Art, Painting, Photography, Pottery, Sculpture, Television, and Textiles.
- Art and Humanities Citation Index
An international interdisciplinary index to the literature of the arts and humanities, indexing the contents of about 6,100 journals, covering about 1,000 fully and about 5,100 selectively. Those selectively covered are titles in the sciences and social sciences indexed by Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index, from which articles of possible interest in the arts and humanities are drawn. Published in three parts: Citation Index (through which you can find what later articles have cited earlier books or articles), Source Index (an author index), and Permuterm Subject Index (which offers keyword access to the titles of articles).
- Avery Index to Architectural Periodical Literature
The Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals database provides a comprehensive listing of journal articles on architecture and design, the history and practice of architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, historic preservation, and interior design and decoration. It contains more than 440,000 thousand entries surveying over seven hundred American and international journals. These include not only scholarly and popular periodical literature, but also publications of professional associations, American state and regional periodicals, and the major serials on architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Avery Index also contains references to more than thirteen thousand obituary citations thereby providing architects, architectural historians, and researchers with an excellent source of biographical and professional information about architects.
- Bibliography of the History of Art
The Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) is a database created by the J. Paul Getty Trust's Art History Information Program (AHIP) in conjunction with the Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. It contains abstracts and indexes of current publications in the history of art, including scholarly journals, conferences, book, exhibition reviews, and exhibition catalogues. The records consist of bibliographic citations, abstracts, and indexing; abstracts may be in English or in French, index terms (descriptors) are in both English and French. This information is also available in print with the same title. Prior to the creation of the BHA, this information was maintained in the RILA (International Repertory of the Literature of Art) from 1975 to 1989 and RAA (Repertoire d'Art et d'Archeologie) from 1973 to 1989; these records are also included in this offering.
- Book Review Digest
Book Review Digest Plus and Book Review Digest Retrospective provide citations and excerpts of reviews of current English-language fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults published or distributed in the United States or Great Britain. Book review excerpts capture the most evaluative passages of the reviews cited. With the addition of book review citations included in the other eleven H.W. Wilson databases ( Applied Science & Technology Full Text, Art Full Text, Biological & Agricultural Index Plus, Education Full Text, General Science Full Text, Humanities Full Text, Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, Library Literature & Information Science Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Wilson Business Full Text), over 8,000 periodicals are covered for the period 1983 to the present, including about 1.3 million reviews of over 550,000 books. Links are provided to over 100,000 full-text reviews. Descriptive annotations of over 150,000 books are also included. Book Review Digest Retrospective cites over 1.5 million reviews of some 300,000 books which appeared in over 500 key English-language popular magazines, newspapers, and academic journals in the period 1905-1982.
- Design and Applied Arts Index
daai currently contains over 110,000 annotated references from more than 450 art, design and craft journals published between 1973-2001, and data on over 50,000 designers, craftspeople, studios, workshops, firms etc., making the largest database of its kind in the world.
- Dissertations and Thesis Full Text
ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses - Full Text contains more than 2 million entries with information about doctoral dissertations and master's theses. It is the same database as Dissertation Abstracts, but with the significant advantage that titles published since 1997 are available in PDF digital format and have 24 page previews available.
- Dybola
Dyabola contains electronic subject catalogs of publications on the history of art and the ancient world. Our subscription includes the subject catalogue of European pre- and early history and the archeology of the Roman provinces in the RGK (Roman-Germanic Commission) in Frankfurt, and the Realkatalog of the DAI (German Archaeological Institute) in Rome.
- Francis
FRANCIS covers a wide range of multilingual, multidisciplinary information in the humanities (63%), social sciences (33%), and economics (4%). FRANCIS is strong in religion, the history of art, and literature, with particular emphasis on current trends in European and world literature.
FRANCIS represents a wide range of materials, including serials, journal articles, books, book chapters, conference papers, French dissertations, exhibition catalogs, legislation, teaching materials, and reports.
- Grove Dictionary of Art
The Dictionary of Art Online is a fully searchable copy of the print dictionary, including some but not all of the illustrations and photographs in the print version. The online dictionary provides an image search for images from the Bridgeman Art Library and also links to images elsewhere on the internet. Types of searches include an Article Search, which performs a search for an article on a specific topic, and a full text search which searches the entire text of the articles.
- Humanities Abstracts
Humanities Abstracts Full Text, produced by The H.W. Wilson Company, is a bibliographic database that cites articles from more than 350 English-language periodicals, plus the full text of over 95 of those periodicals. It covers the fields of archaeology and classical studies, art and photography, folklore, general scholarship, history, journalism and communications, language and literature, literary and political criticism, music and performing arts, philosophy, and religion and theology. Periodical coverage includes some of the best-known scholarly journals and numerous lesser-known but important specialized magazines.
- Index Islamicus
Index Islamicus, produced by the Islamic Bibliography Unit at Cambridge University Library, indexes literature on Islam, the Middle East, and the Muslim world. Records included in the database cover almost a century of publications, with some going back to 1906. The print edition extends coverage back to 1605. Material cited in Index Islamicus includes not only work written about the Middle East, but also about the other main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, plus Muslim minorities elsewhere in the world. Over 2,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works, and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level.
- Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals
The Index to 19th-Century American Art Periodicals indexes 42 art journals published in the US during the 19th century, providing nearly complete coverage of journals from this period. The Index describes the entire journal contents articles, art notes, illustrations, stories, poems, and advertisements and offers information on popular culture and industry, artists and illustrators, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, architecture and design, exhibitions and sales, decorations, and collecting. The file includes 27,000 records.
- Periodicals Content Index
Periodicals Index Online is the new name for Periodicals Contents Index - a database of millions of articles published in the arts, humanities and social sciences, across more than 300 years. It enables researchers to quickly locate articles relevant to their particular field of study.
- WilsonWeb
A collection of periodical indexing databases covering the Arts, Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences. You can search the databases separately, or use WilsonWeb's Check Relevant Databases feature at the bottom of the initial search screen to search across multiple databases simultaneously. WilsonWeb replaces the Expanded Academic Index which was available through Orbis.
INFORMATIONAL WEB SITES
RESEARCH GUIDES