Introduction
This subject guide highlights some key discipline resources to get you started with study and research.
- Refer to the New Students Library Guide for everything you need to know about Library services and resources.
- Build your researching, reading and writing skills with the Research Essentials Library Guide.
- Streamline your access to online resources with the Library's quick access tools.
Reference sources
Dictionaries and encyclopedias are often a useful starting point. They can supply basic factual information and definitions. The University of Melbourne Library holds a large collection of reference works in print and electronic formats including subject specific dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Some online resources are available only to University of Melbourne staff and students. You will be prompted to enter your University email username and password.
- Oxford Art OnlineAllows cross-searching of the Grove Dictionary of Art, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
- Oxford ReferenceBrowse or search under the subject "Art & Architecture" for resources such as "The Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art", "Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists" and "Oxford Companion to the Photograph"
- CAMEO: Conservation & Art Material Encyclopedia OnlineDeveloped by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- ArtsHub AustraliaArtsHub is Australia’s leading online resource for reviews, news and all the latest jobs from the Australian creative and arts industries.
- ArtBiographiesArtBiographies contains biographical information on thousands of Australian visual artists, including exhibitions and prizes. It includes ArtBiogs, ARTEX, NATSIVAD - National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Visual Artists Database, OzBiogs, and AVAD - Australian Visual Arts Databases.
- Design and Art Australia OnlineDesign and Art Australia Online (DAAO) is an open source freely accessible scholarly e-Research tool that presents biographical data about Australian artists, designers, craftspeople and curators.
Databases and journals
Use databases to search across many academic resources (including peer-reviewed journals) at the same time.
Refer to the A-Z Ejournals and Databases page for a comprehensive list of available resources.
Core Arts and Humanities databases:
The selection of multidisciplinary databases below will retrieve results from different subject areas.
- Discovery (EBSCO)Use Discovery to look for books, ebooks, journal articles and more. It's a great place to start your search but does not give you everything the Library has.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar is one of the most popular ways to find academic sources for study and research. Did you know you can use it to search for journal articles that the University of Melbourne has access to? You can do this through the link above or set up your Google Scholar preferences to include Library content.
- JSTORJSTOR is one of the largest databases the Library has access to. It is a multidisciplinary database so it looks in thousands of journals in over a hundred subjects - many of them related to arts and humanities. Highly recommended as your first or second place to search.
- ProQuest CentralCovering more than 160 subjects areas, ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated database of periodical content. This award-winning online reference resource features a highly-respected, diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.
- Scopus (Elsevier)Scopus is another large, multidisciplinary database. It looks through journals, books, and conference papers. It has some advanced tools that can help you discover new research quickly - the 'times cited' and 'related articles' links are great time-savers. While it doesn't always have full-text PDFs it is still an excellent place to look for your research.
- Web of ScienceWeb of Science is a massive, multidisciplinary database which includes a large amount of humanities and social sciences material from as far back as 1900. Like Scopus it has some advanced features that allows you to quickly link to related research.
Databases specific to Art History and Curatorship:
For more focused results, try searching in one of these subject-specific databases.
- Art & Architecture Complete (EBSCO)Provides full-text coverage of 380 periodicals and more than 220 books, along with indexing and abstracts for more than 780 academic journals, magazines and trade publications, plus over 230 books. It also provides selective coverage for 70 additional publications and an Image Collection of over 63,000 images.
- ARTbibliographies Modern (ABM) (ProQuest)Provides full abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art including photography since its invention.
- Art LibrariesResearchers may search within this specialised subset of Worldcat data to hone in on art-historical literature held in the world’s finest art libraries. These art library records are searchable alongside thousands of commercial and freely-accessible collections, portals and repositories provided by OCLC.
This catalogue is publicly accessible. Where material is available via Open Access there are links to the full text. For all other items requests can be made for articles via University of Melbourne Inter-Library-Loans. - Art Index Retrospective (H.W. Wilson)Art Index Retrospective™: 1929 -1984 provides users access to over half a century of art literature covering fine, decorative, and commercial art. Content includes high-quality indexing of nearly 600 publications, many of which are peer-reviewed, and citations of over 25,000 book reviews.
- Artprice.comArtprice is a source of art market information. The auction databases include an artist index and an archive of auction records. This database also provides art market reports.
- Design and Applied Arts Index : DAAI (ProQuest)Covers all aspects of design and crafts, from textiles and ceramics to vehicle design, advertising and sustainability. Indexes journal articles, exhibition reviews and news items from 1973 to the present.
- Index of Medieval ArtA thematic and iconographic index of early Christian and medieval art objects begun at Princeton University in 1917. The Index records works of art produced without geographical limitations from early apostolic times up to A.D. 1550. The database contains thousands of work of art records, most with an accompanying image (many published here for the first time.)
- International Bibliography of Art (ProQuest)IBA is the successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA). Publications covered include at least 500 core journals, with an emphasis on specialist and rare titles that are not covered by other indexes, plus detailed coverage of monographs, essay collections, conference proceedings and exhibition catalogues.
- Bibliography of Asian StudiesBibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) is a comprehensive western-language resource for research on Asia including art. Covers many important journals, particularly ones published in Asia, which are not indexed anywhere else. It also contains citations to Western-language chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, Festschriften, and more. BAS covers all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present.
Art Conservation databases:
- AATA (Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts) OnlineCompiled by the Getty Conservation Institute with the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, AATA Online includes more than 100,000 abstracts of international literature relating to the preservation and conservation of cultural material.
- AHB-ATSIS - Australian Heritage Bibliography – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Subset (Informit)Produced by the Australian Heritage Commission, this is a subset of the AHB database. It contains records that specifically relate to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. includes aboriginal rock art sites, ceremonial grounds and sacred sites; important historical and archaeological sites; historic buildings and structures; historic towns and precincts; coasts; forests; national parks; endangered species; wetlands; rivers; geological features; wilderness areas; and world heritage sites. It covers the period of 1987 to present.
- BCIN (Bibliographic Database of the Conservation Information Network)More than 190,000 bibliographic citations for conservation literature (no full text), including citations from Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts (prior to 1998), technical reports, conference proceedings, journal articles, books and audiovisual and unpublished materials
Books
You can access print and eBooks via the Library Catalogue. To find books on a particular subject, try a keyword search:
To improve your searching skills, see the Research Essentials Library Guide. Note that you can search the catalogue in non-Latin scripts (including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean).
For information on access and loans, including material from other libraries, see the borrowing from the library page. The eBook Guide provides information on eBook access.
Theses
Images
- ARTstor Digital LibraryProvides digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. Includes images from international museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, and artists and artists' estates.
- Oxford Art OnlineEnables you to search via artist, genre and gallery ie. Louvre, Tate etc. Select ‘Images’ from the left hand panel in Advanced search.
- JSTORSearch results include tabs to display 'Images from articles' or 'ARTstor Images' where available. Images can be searched via the Advanced search function. Change the drop down menu to 'caption'.
Websites
You can find relevant information and resources for your research on the websites of professional organisations and bodies, institutes, NGOs, government departments, etc.
This guide gives a few suggestions to get you started and to give you an idea what to look for. It is by no means comprehensive. If you are a coursework student, check your LMS to see if your lecturer has provided website recommendations.
Tip: if you want to limit your Google search results to organisational, governmental, or educational websites, use Google's advanced search option to limit the site or domains to .org, .gov, .edu.
Arts organisations and associations:
- AMaGA (Australian Museums and Galleries Association)The national association and peak advocacy body representing museums and galleries.
- Craft VictoriaCraft Victoria brings together a vibrant and sustainable contemporary craft and design community by supporting, showcasing and celebrating all craft disciplines and practitioners.
- Creative VictoriaCreative Victoria is the State Government body which advises on, and implements arts policy.
- OculaAn online portal for Australian and New Zealand Art Galleries, aiming to revolutionise the way art is bought, sold and researched throughout Australasia.
Directories of art galleries:
- Artforum: art guideListing of international art galleries and current exhibitions.
Primary sources
Click on the button below to browse all online primary source databases the Library subscribes to (it will open in a new tab).
You can sort the list by era by choosing a specific time period from the drop down menu labeled 'All Database Types'.
Asian Art
Art sales and collections
- Artprice.comArtprice includes Auction databases, Marketplace information, Market News, Artprice together with ArtMarketInsight. Artprice's press agency, publishes several times a year its exclusive Art Market reports.
- Art Sales Index OnlineInternational auction results for paintings, watercolors, drawings, sculptures, selected prints and photographs.
- Provenance Index Databases (Getty Research)The databases contain indexed transcriptions of material from auction catalogs and archival inventories of western European works of art, and contain nearly 1,000,000 records that cover the period from the late 16th century to the early 20th century.
Includes the following databases:
Archival Documents (works of art from private collections in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain from 1550 - 1840)
Sale Catalogs (works of art from auction catalogs sales in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia from 1650 - 1840)
Public Collections (description and provenance of paintings by artists born before 1900, American and British public institutions from 1500 - 1990)
- Art Sales Catalogues OnlineComplete historical art sales catalogues for the period 1600 to 1900; contains the online edition of the Répetoire des Catalogues de Ventes Publiques by Frits Lugt combined with the ability to view complete art sales catalogues. The Libraries database allows users to locate libraries with holdings of art sales catalogues.
- Australian Art Sales DigestArt market information for Australian and New Zealand: forthcoming auctions, past auction results from 1969 to the present, market statistics, news and opinion.
Referencing and citing
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