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Professor
Kate Bentz
Library Liaison
Betsy Holmes
Contents
Introduction
Background and Reference
Books
Journal Articles
Primary Sources in Print
Primary Sources on the Web
Find Images
Other Useful Websites
How to Cite Your Sources
Subject Guide
Fine Arts
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This guide is designed to support the thesis assignment in the Fine Arts senior seminar. Although your individual topics may require specialized sources, the resources described below will provide an excellent gateway for your research. If you need personalized assistance with developing a search strategy or locating information, consider making an appointment with the Fine Arts liaison librarian.
Reference materials can provide basic background information on your topic and help you identify keywords for further searching; for example, the names of important artists or art theorists, materials, or events. Some also contain topical essays that can be excellent introductions to a particular subject or time period. Many reference resources provide bibliographies at the ends of each entry or volume, which will point you to additional books, exhibit catalogs, and journal articles worth exploring. The list below is not exhaustive; browse the N section of the Reference and General collections for more resources.
Oxford Art Online (includes The Dictionary of Art)
This comprehensive reference tool on the visual arts contains articles that are international in scope, covering prehistory to the present.
Ref N31 .D5 (print version)
New Dictionary of the History of Ideas
This fully-searchable reference document encapsulates the thinking of different eras and cultures.
Oxford Reference Online
This collection comprises over one million dictionary definitions, facts, figures, people, places, sayings, and dates from 150+ of Oxford's central English and bilingual dictionaries, usage, quotations, and subject reference books. Can be limited to subject area, or searched across references.
The Art Atlas
Ref N5300 .A77
(this is located on the atlas stand in Reference, and also has a CD–Rom)
Guides, Bibliographies, & Writings by Artists
Arts & Humanities through the Eras, 5 vols.
Ref NX440 .A787
Guide to the Literature of Art History
Ref N380 .A75
Research Guide to the History of Western Art
Ref N380 .K56
Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings
Ref N6450.T492 – you may find this useful when crafting your artist statement.
Materials and Processes
The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide
GEN RC963.6.A78 R67
The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques
GEN ND1500 .M39
Materials to Assist with Writing a Research Paper
A Short Guide to Writing about Art
Ref N7476 .B37 2003
Online: Art History Writing Guide
Writing about Art
Ref N7476 .S29
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Geisel Library catalog
To find relevant books, you will probably want to try both Keyword and Subject searching in the library catalog. Start by doing keyword searching on various aspects of your topic. When you find useful books, click on the Subject Headings in their catalog records to identify additional books on the same topic.
WorldCat
By searching WorldCat, you can identify relevant books owned by other colleges and have them delivered to Geisel Library for your use. The best approach is to perform Subject searches on the same Subject Headings that you discovered in the Geisel Library catalog. You can supplement this with Keyword searching on keywords pertaining to your topic.
When you identify a relevant book in WorldCat, you can click on the "Request via Interlibrary Loan" link in its WorldCat record. Books requested through WorldCat are usually delivered to Geisel Library in 7–10 days. You will be emailed when your book arrives, and you can check it out for a specified borrowing period.
Ebrary
This library of over 40,000 e-books spans across all scholarly disciplines. Books can either be opened in QuickView for instant viewing or in the ebrary Reader (a downloadable plug-in), which provides enhanced functionality such as the ability to copy/paste, highlight, or take notes in a particular book.
Access restricted to the Saint Anselm College community.
Below is a sampling of titles that are included in Ebrary:
Adobe Photoshop Cs3: Photographers Guide
High Techne : Art and Technology from the Machine Age to the Posthuman
Introducing Microsoft Expression Studio : Using Design, Web, Blend, and Media to Create Professional Digital Content
Learned Eye : Regarding Art, Theory, and the Artist's Reputation
Museums and Memory
Scientific Examination of Art : Modern Techniques in Conservation and Analysis (Sackler NAS Colloquium)
Reconstructing Architecture : Critical Discourses and Social Practices
Visual Grammar
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As with the book catalogs, search the journal databases using keywords related to your topic, combining concepts together using the Boolean AND and OR operators. Once you find relevant articles, examine the subject headings that have been assigned to them and conduct Subject searches on the ones that seem most potentially fruitful. Be sure to read the bibliographies of articles to identify additional sources worth tracking down.
If there is no link to the full text of the article, click on the  icon to determine whether the journal is available in the Geisel Library or in full-text via another electronic database. If the article isn't available, consider clicking on the Interlibrary Loan link to request a PDF copy of the article from another library. Within a week, you should receive an email indicating that the article is available to access.
Core Resources
Academic Search Premier
A broad index providing abstracts and some full-text for a range of academic areas, including fine arts.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index
Provides indexing to the world's leading arts and humanities journals and selections from social science and science journals. Includes articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, and reviews. (1980–present)
JSTOR
Another core history resource. Search here for full-text articles from major journals in the humanities and social sciences, including a number of important arts journals.
Other Subject Resources
ACM Digital Library
This database produced by the Association for Computing Machinery provides the full text of all ACM journals and magazines, along with conference proceedings and publications of the ACM SIGs (special interest groups). Of special interest: SIGGRAPH: Computer graphics and integrative techniques; SIGMM: Multimedia; SIGWEB: Hypertext, hypermedia, and the web.
America: History & Life
Provides abstracts to journal articles, book/media reviews, and dissertations with a focus on United States and Canadian history and culture from prehistoric times to the present. (1964–present)
Google Scholar
Google Scholar uses the Google interface to unearth articles, books, and conference papers, although only a fraction of the material is available in full text. Use the WebBridge links to check for an item's availability in the library's print or online resources, or to place ILL requests.
Historical Abstracts
Provides abstracts to journal articles, books, and dissertations covering world history from 1450 to the present (excluding North America).
International Medieval Bibliography ON CAMPUS ONLY
IMB is a comprehensive index for Medieval resources.
Iter (Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance)
"Iter's bibliography covers all literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400–1700). Citations for journal articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies are included. Also included are citations for monographs, and material published in monographs and collections of essays."
User Guide Journal list (PDF)
New York Times
"The New York Times (1851–2004) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue."
Project MUSE
"Project MUSE provides online, worldwide, institutional subscription access to the full text of more than 200 scholarly journals in arts and humanities, social sciences, and mathematics."
Times of London Digital Archive
This database provides full-text access to every issue of The Times (London) newspaper from 1785 through 1985, except for Sunday editions. It can be searched by keyword and date range, with options to limit to specific sections of the newspaper.
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Primary sources such as diaries, letters and old newspaper articles are invaluable for providing a first-person perspective on exhibits, events and people for your research. To learn more about how to tap into these resources, see the guide on Finding and Using Primary Source Documents.
Note that with many countries, the majority of primary sources will be in languages other than English, so some degree of fluency in a foreign language may be required. However, you may be able to locate English translations of more prominent documents, often within secondary sources such as books about your subject.
When searching WorldCat for primary sources, combine keyword and/or subject searches on terms such as sources, catalogs, memoirs, diaries, correspondence, papers, personal narratives, or pictorial works. These words will typically appear in the subject headings or notes in records of primary sources.
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American Memory Project
Gateway to historical primary source material in digital format.
Archives of American Art
The Smithsonian provides roughly 16 million letters, photographs, diaries, sketches, scrapbooks, business records, and other documentation that supports the study of the history of the visual arts in America.
British History Online
This digital library consists of core primary and secondary source material spanning the medieval and modern eras of Great Britain.
Digital Dada Library
Digitized dada-era periodicals and document.
EuroDocs: Primary Historical Documents From Western Europe
Links to online collections of digitized primary source documents, organized by country.
European History Primary Sources
Maintained by the European University Institute, this site serves as a portal to scholarly websites that host primary source documents on the history of Europe. Links are organized by country, language, period, and subject.
Google Books
Google has digitized several million books and made them accessible through their search engine. Books not under copyright (including most published before 1922, and many books published in other countries) can be read in their entirety, making this website a great resource for primary source material.
Voice of the Shuttle
This website has a long history as an online gateway for humanities research, including an enormous listing of online contemporary art and art history resources organized by country and time period.
Van Gogh's Letters
Van Gogh's letters unabridged and annotated, with many drawings.
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Connect to ARTstor to access a half -million images and related text. These images can be printed for use in your paper, or included in PowerPoint demonstrations. Ask a Reference Librarian if you require assistance using ARTstor.
The Smithsonian Institution Cross Catalog Searching Center allows you to search across dozens of Smithsonian libraries, archives and specialized research units. Search over 1.7 million records, with links to images, video and sound files, electronic journals and other resources.
There are many additional resources for locating art on the Web. Searching Bing Images or Google Image Search is probably the quickest way to locate art, but often the images are too small or the provenance is dubious. Most search engines offer tools to find images. Many museums offer searchable databases and have digitized much of their collections. The ImageBase of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has one of the largest free database of images on the Web with over 82,000 objects. The WorldImages World Art Database from San Jose State provides access to the California State University IMAGE Institute for Education and Research. It contains over 50,000 images, is global in coverage and includes all areas of visual imagery.
Search OAIster from the University of Michigan to locate more obscure images. This database can also provide primary source material. YouTube can be a great resource to find examples of art processes you would like to explore. In your thesis project.
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Artdaily.org
Daily newspaper devoted to art.Websites
Conservation & Art Material Encyclopedia Online [electronic resource]
Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History
Provenance Research Databases
Search archival documents, sales catalogs and public collections for the provenance of a work of art.
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Work cited for your thesis must use the formats as described in the Chicago Manual of Style, available at the Library's Reference Desk (Ready Ref. Z253 .U69 2003). See the library's How To Cite Your Sources guide, which provides online examples for Chicago/Turabian.
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