Franklin & Marshall College Library

ART 126: First-Year Seminar - How Ideas Become Form

Selected REFERENCE BOOKS in the Reference Room

Use these as points of departure--for overview information about your project, to get ideas for your project, and most importantly, to get bibliographic information for your project.

Art
Please Note: The Library of Congress call number classification for books in the Fine Arts is "N". Fine Arts subclasses you may find helpful in your research include:
N Visual arts
NB Sculpture
NX Arts in general

Benezit dictionary of artists
Extensive entries include biography, bibliography, and auction records.
Ref. Room N 40 .D5213 2006, vols. 1-14

The Encyclopedia of Sculpture
A record of sculpture in chronological, historical, technical, and international contexts.
Ref. Room NB 198 .E53 2004, vols. 1-3

Timelines of the arts and literature
Synchronous cultural events in the context of world events.
Ref. Room NX 447.5 .B76 1994

Twentieth-century artists on art: an index to writings, statements, and interviews
Use for locating primary-source materials.
Ref. Room NX 456 .R59 1996


19th and 20th Century History
Please Note: The Library of Congress call number classification for books about General History and History of Europe is "D". The classifications for History: American are "E" and "F".
Chronology of World History
Ref. Room D 11 .M39 1999, vols. 1-4

Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History
Ref. Room E 169.1 .E624 2001, vols. 1-3


ART REFERENCE online

Oxford Art Online
Online access to Oxford art reference publications, including Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, and The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.


NEWSPAPER and ACADEMIC JOURNAL articles online

Artist News, Reviews, Obituaries
New York Times
The New York Times from the first issue in 1851 through 2005. In addition to full text, content includes most photographs, pictures and advertisements as they originally appeared on the pages.

LexisNexis Academic
Archived and current news from international newspapers and wire services.


Academic Journal Articles
Art Full Text
Variety of international English-language arts publications. Important! Before starting your search click on Art in the Subject Area box.

Arts and Humanities Search
Citations and some full-text articles from many of the world's arts and humanities journals.

BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art)
Bibliography of European and American art from late antiquity to the present; materials abstracted include articles, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and exhibition and dealer's catalogs.

JSTOR
Full-text academic journal collections searchable by discipline. Research tip: scroll through the list of disciplines on the Advanced Search screen and select only those relevant to your topic.


IMAGES online

Oxford Art Online Images
Direct links to art works on museum and other web sites.

ARTstor
Image library and presentation tool.

F&M Library's Guide to Finding Images on the Web
Annotated list of interdisciplinary image web sites.


Primary Sources

Primary sources are original materials created by individuals who were actual participants in the topic at hand, which in your case is the life of an artist. These materials can take a wide range of forms, including correspondence, diaries, maps, speeches, photographs, recorded interviews, and even art works. Caution! What qualifies as a primary source can be subjective. Consult Professor Maksymowicz for acceptable primary-source materials for this course.

Finding Books

  • Select CATALOG from the Library home page. To find books for this class use word, phrase, and subject terms relevant to your artist and his or her life.
  • When you discover a book of interest, select the "DETAILS" tab, and then the "FULL RECORD" tab to look at Subject terms assigned to the book. Click on a subject term to find other books on your topic in the library.
  • After you've searched the F&M Library Catalog for books on your topic, search WorldCat for a broader view of books on your topic that are held by other libraries in the world. Use the information in a book's WorldCat record to get it through Interlibrary Loan.

Other "How To's"...

Additional Help

Email Louise Kulp at louise.kulp@fandm.edu or call her at 717-291-4242 for further assistance, or fill out a research appointment request form to have an extremely helpful consultation designed just for you and your project!

Updated 9/23/2008 lak