Guide to Art History

The purpose of this page is to provide access some of the more useful sources for art history research.

Books

CSUSM has purchased a variety of materials on art history. All are listed in the CSUSM catalog and can be found through keyword or subject searches. Note some books in the catalog are available through electronic format (click on the WWW link in the catalog record for 2-hour access.)

To find additional materials, you can look through these joint catalogs:

• Circuit is the joint catalog for CSUSM, SDSU, UCSD, USD and SDCL libraries with delivery in 1-3 days (3-5 for SDCL).
• Melvyl searches the entire University of California catalog system and delivers in 5-10 days through Interlibrary Loan.
• WorldCat searches a 'universe' of library catalogs and delivers in 5-10 days through Interlibrary Loan.

Useful Subject Terms

Can't think of terms to accurately describe your topic?  Library catalogs use specific subject headings to group related books together. 'Art' and 'education' are such large topics, you will want to think of ways to narrow it down, by time period, artist, culture, etc. Ask a librarian to help, or here are some examples to think about:

Art--History Art--History--20th Century (note the time limiter, there can also be geographic limiters) National Endowment For The Arts--History  (history of an arts-related agency or organization)
Art, Primitive
Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959  (note the last name, first name format when looking for a person as subject. This also is the format to use when looking for a work by a specific author.)
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) Museums or other exhibition sites can be listed as alternate authors or subjects.
Mural Painting And Decoration--Ancient Egypt (type of art, limited by geographic region and time period)

Articles

Use the History research databases as well as Art resources for a thorough search.

America: History & Life
Abstracts of journal articles covering American & Canadian history, from pre-history to the present.

Art Abstracts
Includes abstracts from periodicals, yearbooks, museum bulletins, competition and award notices, exhibition listings, interviews, film reviews, and more.

Historical Abstracts
Historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present.

JSTOR
Contains complete full-text back files (EXCEPT for the latest five years) of core scholarly journals in such areas as sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American studies, Asian studies and others.

MLA
Includes abstracts of articles from critical literary and language journals including art history.

Project Muse
Full-text coverage for hundreds of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.

Womens Studies International
Includes over 204,000 records drawn from a variety of essential women's studies databases.

Internet Sources

This is a representative sample of Art History sources on the web. Check the Museums page to see other sources on Art History.

Art History Resources on the Web
Maintained by Christopher Witcombe of Sweet Briar College, this site offers links to materials either by time period or geographic region.

Eighteenth-Century Resources: Art, Architecture, Landscape Gardening
Resources, museums and sites sorted by artist at Rutgers University. 

Mother of All Art and Art History Links Page
Maintained by the School of Art & Design at University of Michigan, this site provides links to art schools/departments, research resources, collections, exhibitions, museums and new media.

Resources in Art History for Graduate Students
A list of links, conferences, research award, publication opportunities and for the graduate researcher in Art History.

Timeline of Art History
A very detailed site provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art using images from their vast collections. Included are special topics indexes, artist index, subject index, maps and more. The periods covered run from prehistory through present day. 

The Victorian Web: Arts in Victorian Britain
Links to a variety of resources on Victorian art, printmaking, photography, fine arts and more.

Voice of the Shuttle: Art History
A large and well-organized site providing links to art history topics divided by general, geography, theory and more categories.

World Wide Web Virtual Library: History of Art
A short list of links to extensive pages of links on various aspects of art history and related areas of interest.