Getting Started
The following resources can be helpful places to start at the beginning of the research process.
Art History reference books
- The Dictionary of Art / N31 .D5 2002 v.1-34
- The Grove Encyclopedia of Art and Architecture / N5610 .G76 2007 v.1-2
- The HarperCollins Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques / N33 .M37 1991
- The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists / N6505.M59 O93 2007
- The Oxford Dictionary of Art / N33 .O93 1997
- Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art / N7560.H34 D52 2008
Online reference sources
- Credo Reference: A great starting point for research projects. Search in hundreds of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and subject-specific titles, as well as 200,000+ images and audio files, and nearly 200 videos.
- Discovery Search: Search books, e-books, and articles in one place.
- Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (The Metropolitan Museum of Art): A chronology of art history from around the world.
Articles
The following databases and journals are useful places to search for art history-related articles. Contact a librarian if you would like more information on how to search for articles on your specific topic.
Databases
- Academic Search Complete (EBSCO): Covers a wide range of academic disciplines, with more than 8600 periodicals available in full text.
- Directory of Open Access Journals: An interdisciplinary database of free, full-text, scholarly journals.
- Humanities International Complete: Broad coverage of humanities disciplines, with over 1200 full-text journals and books.
- JSTOR: A full-text archive of over 400 scholarly journals in the arts and sciences. Issues from the past three to five years may not be available.
- ProQuest Research Library: Includes both popular and scholarly periodicals covering a variety of subjects, with over 3300 titles available in full text.
Journals
Search for journals that cover art history-related topics by using our Publication Finder tool. You can search for specific journals by title, subject, and more.
Get articles from other libraries
If you cannot find a full-text version of the article you need, request it through interlibrary loan. Interlibrary loan is a free service that allows you to borrow books and articles from other libraries.
Books
Books from Lane Library
Search for books in our collection through Lane Library’s catalog. You can find books with art-specific subject headings below:
Discovery Search: Search Lane Library’s books, ebooks, and articles in one place.
Books from other libraries
WorldCat: Search for books not available at Lane Library and borrow from other libraries for free through interlibrary loan.
Image and Visual resources
- Digital Public Library of America: Millions of texts, images, audio and video files, and other primary source materials digitized by libraries, archives, museums, and other organizations.
- Library of Congress Digital Collections: Browse the freely accessible maps, images, and files making up the digital collections of The Library of Congress.
- The Met Open Access Artwork: Browse more than 406,000 hi-res images of public-domain works in The Met collection that can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction.
- National Gallery of Art Images: A repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. More than 51,000 open digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use.
- Smithsonian Open Access: Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
Writing Guides & Citations
- Art History Writing Guide: Art-specific writing guide from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Lane Library Citation Guide: Find info on APA, Chicago, CSE, and MLA citation styles here.
- Writing in Art History: Writing and citation tips for art history from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).
