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Art History & Theory

On this page

• Databases & indexes
• Photographic image databases
• Reference
  • Biographical
  • Dictionaries
  • Encyclopedias
• Newspapers on microform with indexes
• Web sites

Other resources

• Art History & Theory Writing Guide (142K in PDF format)
• Audiovisual Services
• Citation styles
• Copyright Guidelines for Research Students (60K in PDF format)
• Thesis information

Databases & indexes

	Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) A multidisciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals. This database also offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
	Art Abstracts (H.W. Wilson) (EBSCOhost) A comprehensive resource for art information with indexing and abstracting of over 600 periodicals dating back to 1984.
	Art Project A Google project that allows users to explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.
	ARTstor Digital Library The current version of ARTstor supports the following browsers: IE 7.0+ ; Firefox 3.0+; Safari 3.0+. A nonprofit digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences with a suite of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
	Bibliography of the History of Art An online bibliography of scholarly writing about the history of western art. BHA on the Getty Web site offers both basic and advanced search modules, and can be searched by subject, artist, author, article or journal title, and other elements.
	INZART (Index to New Zealand Art) (New Zealand Index) An index to articles which provide information on New Zealand artists, art galleries and museums, exhibitions and art events. Details of images and illustrations are also included. INZART indexes from New Zealand and international serials held predominantly in the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library. Art-related articles published in New Zealand newspapers are also selectively indexed.
	JSTOR Provides full-text access to back issues (delay in coverage generally 3-5 years) of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. The Library subscription includes access to the Life Sciences Collection, Business III and the Arts & Sciences Collections I - IX.
	Oxford Art Online Covers all aspects of the visual arts worldwide – from prehistory to the present day. Over 5,000 art images and line drawings with links to more. Includes: Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms (all fully cross-searchable).
	ProQuest Central A leading electronic database providing indexing/abstracting and full-text access to scholarly and general interest publications. It combines information from a number of leading online databases with subjects covering: business, law, education, computing, science, technology, engineering, arts, medicine, and religion.

Additional Art History databases and resources

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Photographic image databases

New Zealand

• Matapihi - images from New Zealand Galleries, Museums, and Libraries, includes many photographs
• Timeframes - at Alexander Turnbull Library, images of New Zealand and the Pacific
• University of Otago Digital Collections - includes John Kinder.

International

• George Eastman House - International Museum of Photography and Film (one of the oldest film archives in the United States)
• Getty Museum - groups images by medium
• Google Images - most comprehensive image search on the web
• National Media Museum (UK)
• New York Public Library Digital Collection - includes cyanotypes, postcards, Lewis Hine, etc
• Smithsonian Photography Initiative - over 13 million images in 700 collections
• Victoria and Albert Museum - over 500,000 images with a wide range of processes, techniques and subject matter.

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Reference

• Biographical
• Dictionaries
• Encyclopedias

Biographical

• Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists - Cen:Ref N/6512/CY86/1994
• Dictionary of Russian & Soviet Artists 1420-1970 - Cen:Ref N/6998/MM86
• Dictionary of Women Artists - Cen:Ref N/8354/DJ21

Dictionaries

• 20th-Century Artbook - Cen:Ref N/6490/TY86
• Art Book - Cen:Ref N/33/AS39
• Collins Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques - Cen:Ref N/33/MF24/1993
• Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
• Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms
• Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
• Dictionary of Modern Design
• Dictionary of 20th Century Art
• Dictionary of 20th Dentury Design - Cen:Ref NK/1390/PL97
• Oxford Companion to the Photograph
• Oxford Companion to Western Art
• Oxford Dictionary of Art
• Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance
• Penguin Dictionary of Architecture - Cen:Ref NA/31/FK84/1989

Encyclopedias

• Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism - Cen:Ref NX/600/S95
• Encyclopedia of Interior Design - Cen:Ref NK/1704/B616
• Enc. of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist Art - Cen:Ref N/6370/EJ7
• Encyclopedia of comparative iconography - Cen:Ref N/7560/EJ7
• Encyclopedia of sculpture - Cen:Ref NB/198/EJ7

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Newspapers

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Web sites

• Art Cyclopedia - Fine art search engine. Comprehesive and effective guide to fine art on the Internet with an excellent links page.
• Art History Resources on the Web - Geographically and historically comprehensive list of art history web sites.
• ArtLex - Visual arts dictionary
• Big Search Engine Index - Directory of image search engines
• Finding Images on the Web - Approaches to image searching
• Google Advanced Image Search - Searches the web for graphic images
• ICOM Virtual Library of Museum Pages
• intute: arts & humanities - database of over 18,000 web resources in the arts and creative industries
• Picsearch - Search engine for pictures and images
• Te Puna Web Directory - Arts & Literature - New Zealand Arts and Literature web resources
• VADS (Visual Arts Data Service) - portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images
• Visual Arts Data Service - portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images
• Web Gallery of Art - European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical and Romantic periods (1100-1850)
• Words of Art (University of British Columbia) - Glossary of terms used in art

Last revised: 9 December, 2009