Specialized Art Databases

Introduction

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Welcome to this overview of the specialized art databases available through UNM’s University Libraries and beyond. In this tutorial you will learn:

• How to access art databases
• What you'll find there
• The date ranges each database covers

Please click on the arrows below to move through the tutorial.

Hover over the Table of Contents icon  in the upper right corner of this frame at any time to jump to a different section of the tutorial.

Introduction

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For all the databases, begin with the University Libraries homepage at library.unm.edu. This is also the page you see to the right.

To find any database, you'll click the corresponding letter under Databases near the middle of the page and then click the title of the database. You will need to sign in to some databases with your UNM ID and password.

In the next section, we'll begin with Oxford Art Online.

Oxford Art Online

To enter Oxford Art Online, click O under Databases. Then scroll down and click Oxford Art Online.

Here you have access to the most authoritative, inclusive, and easy-to-use online art resources available. Through a single, simple gateway you can search and use an increasing number of Oxford’s excellent art reference works, including:

• Grove Art Online
• The Benezit Dictionary of Artists
• The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
• The Oxford Companion to Western Art
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms

This database also contains many subject guides, specially commissioned articles, and bibliographies available exclusively online.

Take a moment to explore the site for a topic of interest to you.

Art Full Text

The next database is Art Full Text. Return to the University Libraries homepage and click A under Databases. Then scroll down and click Art Full Text.

 

Here you can search for articles from the mid-1980s to the present addressing the visual arts, architecture, decorative arts, landscape architecture, media, museology, and photography. Art Full Text features international coverage with emphasis on English-language research.

Note that the name of the database you are searching appears near the top of the page to the left of the EBSCOhost logo. 

Try searching for articles on your research topic!

Art Index Retrospective

Next we'll look at Art Index Retrospective. Return to the University Libraries homepage and click A under Databases. Then scroll down and click Art Index Retrospective.

This is a bibliographic database of articles written between 1929 and 1984. The cited articles are from periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins in English and several other European languages. Art Retrospective also indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals.

Feel free to try it out. You can search by author, title, subject, and much more!

ArtBibliographies Modern (ABM)

Another database is ArtBibliographies Modern (ABM). To get there, return to the University Libraries homepage and click A under Databases. Then scroll down and click ArtBibliographies Modern.

ABM contains abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, catalogs, dissertations, and exhibition reviews written from 1974 to the present, and it covers artists and movements from the late 19th century to today. Photography is covered from its invention in 1839 to the present. Topics range from ‘traditional’ media to:

• Performance art
• Installation works
• Video and electronic art
• Body art
• Graffiti
• Artists' books
• Crafts
• Jewelry and more

ABM also covers new and lesser-known artists and foreign-language sources.

Note that the name of the database you are searching appears near the top of the page to the left of the ProQuest logo.

Take some time to try out ABM. Here, too, you can search by author, title, subject/artist, and much more.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index

To access Art & Humanities Citation Index, return to the University Libraries homepage and click A under Databases. Then scroll down and click Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

The link will take you to the Web of Science site, which administers this database and others. Arts & Humanities Citation Index provides access to the world’s leading scholarly work written from 1975 to the present in the arts and humanities.

Go ahead and give it a try. Search by keyword, author, or by cited reference, create visual representation of citations with Citation Mapping, analyze trends and patterns, and more.

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals

Next we'll look at Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. To get there, return to the University Libraries homepage and click A under Databases. Then scroll down and click Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals.

This database searches more than 1,000 periodicals published worldwide on archaeology, city planning, interior design, historic preservation, and architecture. Coverage is extensive, from 1934 to the present, and is updated daily.

As with other databases, the name of the database you're searching is to the left of the vendor logo, in this case EBSCOhost.

Bibliographie de l'Histoire d'Art (BHA)

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To access BHA, return to the University Libraries homepage and click B under Databases. Then scroll down and click BHA (Bibliographie de l'Histoire d'Art/Bibliography of the History of Art).

BHA is a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly writing on European and U.S. visual arts and has citations to journals, monographs, essays, conference proceedings, and catalogs. Citations cover visual arts publications between 1975 and 2007.

Note that BHA is available on the Getty Research Institute’s website and is not linked to UNM library collections. Therefore, after searching BHA, you will need to check whether UNM Libraries own or has access to a particular item.

On the next page, we'll try a search with BHA and then check UNM Libraries for holdings.

Bibliographie de l'Histoire d'Art (BHA)

2 of 3On the BHA opening search page, type an artist, subject, or author you're interested in. As an example, type "Basquiat" and click Search. Then click Articles under Resource Types in the left sidebar.

Find an article that looks interesting to you and click the title. Note the author, article title, journal title, date, volume and issue numbers, and page numbers.

One search result is the article "Basquiat's Wave" by David Bowie. It was published in Modern Painters, in volume 9, issue 1, in 1996, on pages 46-47.

 

(Untitled by Jean Michel Basquiat, 1982)

Bibliographie de l'Histoire d'Art (BHA)

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Now let's go back to the UNM Libraries homepage to check whether we have access to the item.

In the left sidebar, click Journals. Then type "modern painters" in the search box.

If a source you're looking for is not available through UNM Libraries, you can request it from another library via UNM ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan).

JSTOR

JSTOR is a multidisciplinary database. To get there, return to the University Libraries homepage and click J under Databases. Then scroll down and click JSTOR.

JSTOR contains complete PDF full-text back files of more than 1,000 core scholarly journals in all disciplines including numerous art, art history, and architecture journals. Recently JSTOR has made current content of a number of journals available as well.

Try searching for your research topic. Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the search page to limit your search to relevant subject areas.

World Biographical Dictionary of Artists (AKL)

The World Biographical Dictionary of Artists is a CD-ROM available at the Fine Arts and Design Library (FADL). To access it, visit the Service Desk at FADL, located on the 4th floor of George Pearl Hall, just east of the UNM Bookstore. Click here for a map and directions.

The World Biographical Dictionary of Artists is both a comprehensive biographical reference work about artists and a unique index of the three large standard works for art history:

• The Thieme-Becker (covering 1907 to 1950)
• The Vollmer (covering 1953 to 1962)
• The Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (from 1991 onwards, approx. 100 vols.). 

The title Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (AKL) is German and means General Artist Dictionary. 

Review & Further Help

This tutorial provided an overview of the major art-related databases available through UNM University Libraries.

It covered: 

• How to access art databases
• What you'll find there
• The date ranges of each database

For further help, see our tutorials on the particulars of database searching.

You can also contact a librarian at the UNM Libraries homepage. Click Ask a Librarian in the upper right corner. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions! We’re here to help you succeed with your coursework and research.

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