Art & Art History 

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First Things First:  Choosing a topic & Selecting your search terms

Choosing a topic is an iterative process.  Here are some considerations to keep in mind. Your topic will evolve as you research, so research must also be part of choosing your topic.

Think about synonyms, broader terms, narrower terms, plural/singular terms... what are the ways to describe your topic?  Create a list of topic words or that you will use in your searches.

Finding Books

• VIRGO - The library catalog
  NOTE:  Words that appear in "Subject" field are Library of Congress Subject Heading terms:
  • Ingres, Painting, Correspondence, David, Criticism, Women...
    

Search using KEYWORD and SEARCH ALL, and join your words using "AND"
Example: Ingres and Women  
Example: Ingres and Drawing?
(the ? is a "truncation" symbol.  This search will look for Drawing and Drawings)

Careful!  "Search All" will include results in which your terms appear as part of an Author's name, publishing company, etc!
  

Remember, in a library catalog, only a few words are chosen to describe the ENTIRE CONTENTS of a book... so choose search terms that are broad!  A book on French Painting might have a great chapter on Ingres and women, but those words might not appear in the library catalog record!

WorldCat
Includes over 30 million catalog records and holdings from over 12,000 libraries worldwide, including UVA. Materials in all formats.  WorldCat will help you find out what is out there that UVA might not have.  Most materials in WorldCat are available through Interlibrary Loan.

Finding Articles and News in Databases

(BHA) Bibliography of the History of Art
Covering European and American art from late antiquity (ca. 300 A. D.) to the present, the Bibliography of the History of Art indexes and abstracts art-related books, conference proceedings and dissertations, exhibition and dealer's catalogs, and articles from more than 2,500 periodicals. The Bibliography of the History of Art is updated quarterly and covers 1973 to the present.

Art Index
Art Index is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts 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, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish.

JSTOR
Full-text backfiles of many important scholarly journals in areas such as anthropology, asian studies, ecology, economics, education, history, literature, math, philosophy, politics, sociology, and statistics. Coverage is usually from the first issue to 3-5 years before the present.

EbscoHost
Indexes over 100 journals related to architecture, planning, landscape and sustainability - many of which are NOT indexed by other databases. Some articles provided in full-text.  Also great for current events, news items, and reviews.  Remember to "Select all" at the beginning.  You're searching a very broad range of materials here, so adding words like art, painting, etc. to your search will help you to find articles that are more relevant.

Periodicals Index Online (PIO)
PIO is an electronic index to the contents of thousands of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences published from 1770 to the 1990s. Every article is indexed. Includes over twelve million journal articles in 3,665 journals. Every year, it adds records for more than one million new articles.

Dissertations & Theses Full-Text
Full text (PDF) of most dissertations from 1997 on, some earlier works and some master's theses. Also lists all dissertations and theses from 1861 on at US and some other universities. Abstracts included after July, 1980.

Images

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Related Subjects

Find databases about English/Literature, Religion, History, Sociology, etc. 
Click here for a list of databases by topic.