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Art History, Curating and Visual Studies

Journals

Books in Barber Fine Art LibraryJournals are also known as periodicals.  They are an important resource because they:

  • are published on a regular basis
  • contain the most up to date scholarly research in their subject
  • tend to be shorter and discuss the subject in more detail than books

Some examples:

 

Don't rely solely on Google or even Google Scholar for your research!  Findit@Bham is a good place to start looking for good quality journal articles, but it is more efficient if you use one of the bibliographic databases available in your subject.  These will find relevant journal articles and sometimes also books, reports, working papers and conference proceedings.

Some databases will give direct full-text access to the articles.  Others will provide an index and abstract (a short summary) of the article. 

If the full text is not available in the database, there will be a                 FindIt@Bham            link to check if we have the full text available from elsewhere. 

Recommended Databases for Art History, Curating and Visual Studies

The following are the major bibliographic databases for finding out about and linking to journal articles published on art history, curating and visual studies:

Finding databases

Apart from books and journals, the Library subscribes to a vast array of other electronic resources which are of relevance to all subjects.  These can be bibliographic databases, historical sources, original texts, newspapers, statistics, images, multi-media resources, websites, etc.

In FindIt@Bham, these can be found by clicking on the Databases or database search tab at the top of the screen.  You may need to first click on the 3 horizontal dots to enable this function. 

FindIt screenshot of options including database search

 

You can search for them by their name, if you know it, using the Title box or the alphabetical links under the search bar.   Otherwise, you can select a subject from the Resource subject filter on the left.

If you are looking for a specific type of resource (e.g. newspapers, statistics, images, etc.), use the Resource type filter on the left for a drop-down list. 

Access to databases

Once you select a database, it will give you a description of it, the type of resource it is, and whether it is subscribed or free of charge:

Screenshot of Bridgeman Education database entry on FindIt, with further information

Click on its title to access the resource.  If there is a note saying Please read before use!, this is usually about information you need for access, such as a specific username and password.  If there is an online user guide available, there will be a link to it.

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