Art, Aesthetics and Productive Spectatorship

Lisa Zaher, Instructor
Nancy Spiegel, Art Librarian

Quick-reference sources

• Grove Art Online A standard, continuously updated reference source, searchable by themes as well as by artists' names. The bibliographies are current and a worthwhile starting point for further research.
  
  
• The Dictionary of Art Historians: A handy index of biographical and methodological information about historians of western art history.
  
  
• Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism: One of the standard reference works in the field, this guide offers articles on theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault. Entries on Film Theory, Cultural Studies and Art Theory provide useful overviews.
  
  
• See also the library's guide to finding reference books and selected online art dictionaries.
  

The Library Catalog
Review of advanced search techniques, LC subject headings, finding journals, etc.

 

Worldcat, the multi-library catalog--know what else is out there!

Search millions of book, journal, film, and archival records from libraries all over the world at once with WorldCat. Most major museum library collections (Getty, MOMA, National Gallery, etc.) came be found in Worldcat. Use the Find it! button to request a title you need through Interlibrary Loan.

After Worldcat, Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog is the best starting place for searching German libraries; SUDOC for French university libraries; and Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN) for Italian libraries

See also our guides to other multi-library catalogs and to dissertation catalogs.

 

Finding articles in the art and film literature

• Art Index Retrospective (1929-1984) and Art Abstracts (1984-present): A core resource for art research, indexing over 300 key journals.
  
  
• ArtBibliographies Modern (1974 -present). Best place to start for 20th-and 21st-century artists and movements; performance and multi-media art; and emerging trends in contemporary art
  
  
• Bibliography of the History of Art (1973-present). The largest of the indexes, BHA emphasizes post-classical art and covers a significant number of European journals. A list of journals indexed is available here.
  
  
• Film and Television Literature Index: A core resource for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest. While the database very selectively indexes some journals back to the early 20th century, coverage for most titles begins in the late 1980s or 1990s. A complete list of the jounrnals indexed, with dates of coverage, can be found here.
  
  Consult Retrospective Index to Film Periodicals (call # Z5784.M9B34 RR3) for articles published from between 1930 and 1971.
  
  
• International Index to the Performing Arts: Indexes more than 200 scholarly and popular performing arts periodicals, plus a variety of documents such as biographical profiles, conference papers, obituaries, interviews, discographies, reviews and events. Most records feature an abstract, selected records are full text
  
  
• International Index to Film Periodicals (1972-present): A core resource for film criticism, reviews, and interviews, covering 300 of the most important scholarly and popular titles in the literature of film studies.
  
  
• Periodicals Index Online: An excellent resource for interviews, reviews and older articles on film topics. PI0 indexes several cinema journals: Cahiers du Cinéma (1951-present); Cantrills Filmnotes (1971-present); Cinéaste (1967-present); Cinema Journal (1961-present; full-text 1961-1991); Cinema Papers (1974-present); Film Comment (1962-present); Film Quarterly (1945-present); Film Review (1944-present); Films in Review (1954-present); Frauen und Film(1974-present); Journal of Popular Film and Television (1972-present; full-text 1972-1991); Literature/Film Quarterly (1973-present).

 

Multidisciplinary electronic resources of interest to art historians
For more databases, go to the Database Finder page, select the "subject browse" tab, and then a subject area from the list.

• America: History and Life (1954-present). Articles and book reviews in North American history. A core resource for the history literature.
  
• AnthropologyPlus (late 19th century to present) Core resource indexing the anthropological literature.
  
• Academic Search Premier Articles in the social sciences, humanities, and arts. Nice mixture of scholarly journals and general- interest publications such as the New Yorker, Ms., and New Republic. Coverage varies considerably, title by title.
• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals (1934-present). Includes architecture as well as interior design, city planning, archaeology and individual architects.
• British Humanities Index (1962-present). Indexes humanities journals and weekly magazines published primarily in Great Britain.
• Historical Abstracts (1967-present) Articles and book reviews in European history.
  
• IBZ Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriftenliteratur, (1983-present). Indexes English-language and European periodicals, books, and dissertations.
  
• JSTOR Back issues of scholarly journals in all disciplines, with a moving wall of about five years. View included art titles here.
  
• MLA Bibliography (1926-present). Core resource for articles on literature, theory and literary criticism. This list describes all of the indexed journal titles. For coverage from 1921 to 1925, consult the print volumes (call # Z7006.M67 bookstacks).
  
• Project Muse Full-text collection of recent (usually last five years), scholarly journals in all disciplines.

Archives of American Art /Smithsonian Institution Library Catalogs The Archives of American Art holds artists' papers; the records of galleries, museums, and art organizations; and videos and interviews from the Archives’oral history project. Most of these collections are available to the University of Chicago community on microfilm though interlibrary loan.

 

Image and video collections

• ARTstor: The largest of the image databases and the best starting place for most research.. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures, with growing strengths in modern and contemporary art. Users can search, view and download images, save images into groups, and create presentations using the Offline Viewer..
  
  
• CAMIO: The Catalog of Art Museum Images online is a database of images of works of art in the collections of major museums in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. A good suppletment to ARTstor.
  
  
• Artnet: Provides descriptions and images of individual lots sold at major auction houses since 1990. Database includes paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. Records are searchable by either artist's name or auction house. Sometimes a good way to assemble a body of material on little-known artists.
  
  
• UBUweb A freely-available repository of various artists' films, sound files and writings.
  
  
• Electronic Arts Intermix Founded by Howard Wise in 1971, EAI is one of the world's leading resources for artists' videos and interactive media.for the library
  
  
• Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Catalog of video titles produced from the late 1960s to the present. Features video art, with an emphasis on early and seminal works central to the development of video as an art form; documentaries made by artists; and interviews with visual artists, photographers, and critics. *** You may request purchases for the library using this form, order titles through interlibrary loan, or if in a bind for time, you may view videos at the Data Bank's office at SAIC.

 

Newspapers available online (a sampling): Another good resource for exhibition reviews.

• Boston Globe, 1987-
  
• Chicago Tribune, 1872-1963; Chicago Tribune, 1963-1985; Chicago Tribune,1985-
• Guardian, 1996-
• Independent, 1993-
  
• Los Angeles Times, 1886-1986 and Los Angeles Times, 1996-
  
• New York Times, 1851-2004; New York Times,1995-
  
• New York Times Magazine, 1997-
  
• Times of London1906-1980; Times of London, 1992-
  
  
• Lexis Nexis Academic Provides access to selected national, regional and international newspapers. Coverage varys considerably, title by title.

 

Other resources

• Film Studies Center
  
• Refworks software for managing citations and generating bibliographies
  
• New Media Workshop at the University of Chicago
  
  

Research tips

• Use the Find it! button to link from the article citation to the full text.
  
• Search the library catalogs for a topic using keywords; click on the title of a relevant item to find official subject headings; then search the catalogs for this term using a subject keyword search.
  
• Use our interlibrary loan service to get articles and books that we don't own. **Remember, articles can take as few as three days; books typically take 7 to 10 days, but can take much longer, depending on the time of year, and where the book is held.
• I am always available to answer your questions:

  Nancy Spiegel -- nspiegel@uchicago JRL 463, 702-5193