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Guide to Digital Art Resources

The purpose of this guide is to familiarize you with the best resources for research on digitally-created art and artists.

Getting Started

Keywords: Think about the terminology that you need to 'capture' the material needed. Keep in mind, boundaries are not clear-cut between styles and some artists cross perceived boundaries. This can give you many choices for your research, but can also make it hard to stay focused on a topic precise enough for a good paper. This is also a newer field, so some of the more traditional resources such as encyclopedias may not hold much for this topic, but this will change as publications become more available.

  • Internet Art  N7433.8 .G73 2004 
  • Digital Art N72.T4 P38 2003 
  • Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures  QA76.9.C66 L86 2000 

Books

A research paper on art is not a review of a exhibit you attended or what you think about an artist. You need to do research and find the number of materials required by your instructor on your topic to write a decent paper. Depending on how much time you have, you have a couple of options for where you can search:

CSUSM Library Catalog--provides information on books at Cal State San Marcos that are available either in paper (on the shelf) or electronic format (click on the WWW link in the catalog record for 2-hour access.)

Other Options (not at CSUSM)--these may be locally held or be borrowed from across the country. To find out that a book exists, you need to search one of these three catalog databases. Once the material is in, you pick it up at the Library's Checkout desk.

  • Circuit is the joint catalog for CSUSM, SDSU, UCSD, and USD with delivery in 1-3 days.

  • Melvylsearches 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 Keywords

Keywords can be subject to interpretation by a computer search function in ways you never imagined! Try to be specific in your search. Use 'virtual art' or 'computer-generated art' instead of 'digital art'. You can also look for specific tools. media or artists. 

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' is such a large topic, you will want to think of ways to narrow it down, by time period, geography, style, specific artist, culture, etc. Ask a librarian to help, or here are some examples to think about:

Browse the Book Stacks
Sometimes, just looking through the shelves can turn up works you would not have considered otherwise. Using the Library of Congress subject system, Art is shelved in the N call number area, but digital art involving computer technology or technique can also be found in the QA76.9 area. The Wikipedia online encyclopedia provides a list of the subclasses in the N area so you can see how this is organized.

Genre Headings
Genre refers to a type of book or other information (e.g., videos) rather than the topic (as with a subject heading search.) A very important type of information in the Art discipline is exhibition catalogs. CSUSM has a number of these, and to find them is by selecting GENRE as the search field, instead of the default KEYWORD, and then type in Exhibitions. There are other art-related genres such as Video Art (recordings made of interviews with artists or exhibits) and Electronic Journals--Arts (full text journals in our databases or on the internet.) The searchable categories for this type of search continues to grow, so explore!

 

Journal Articles

Arts-related journals include some of the latest research in the field as well as discussion of specific aspects of art such as history, genre, artists and movements. Journals are a good source for finding very detailed information on your topic. It is best to start with a couple of books before diving into journals to get ideas on terms to use in your search as you will get so many hits on the 'big picture'.

To search for articles, you need to start with research databases.  Each will allow you to search hundreds or even thousands of journals at once. Some databases are directories, rather than full-text collections. Use the Check SFX for Availability link to check our other resources for the full text of the article. The first choice to make is which databases to look in first! Here are some recommendations:

Most Useful

Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)
Full-text. A large, multi-disciplinary database offering full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals as well as non-scholarly titles, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles.

Art Abstracts
Includes abstracts from periodicals, yearbooks, museum bulletins, competition and award notices, exhibition listings, interviews, film reviews, and more. Use SFX to link to available full-text.

Grove Art Online
Comprises the full text of The Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 vols), and The Oxford Companion to Western Art (2001). Includes new and updated articles.

Project Muse
Full text. Includes a small collection of scholarly journals in art. This complements older holdings of some titles offered in JSTOR.

JSTOR
Full-text. 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. Art is not yet a separate journal collection in this database, but the history collection is a useful place to search when researching older works.

Also Useful

ProQuest Newspapers
Includes coverage of over 300 major U.S. and international newspapers, such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune. A great place to look for exhibition reviews from the 1970's to present.

Safari Books
A collection of over 300 O'Reilley programming and technology books - completely searchable, including code fragments. Helpful for techniques working with specific software. 

Internet Sources

Your instructor may allow use of some web pages you find on the Wild Wild Web. NOT ALL SITES ARE OF EQUAL VALUE TO YOU AS A RESEARCHER. Exercise caution with statements you find and look for references lists and citations for supporting documentation. Without careful fact-checking and research, you don't know what is truth and what is fiction, but the instructor grading your paper is going to know! Click on a link below to open a page of reliable sites you can check out:

Before getting started, you might want to refer to this reference book in our collection: Art Information and the Internet: How to Find it, How to Use It at REF N59 .J66 1999. This discusses, among other topics, museum web sites, search strategies and more. See the Museums page for online art collections hosted by museums from around the world.

Art Links Art Gallery Worldwide: Digital Art
List of links to artists and galleries in no particular order. Click on the MORE to see a fuller description of each site.

Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Protect yourself by knowing the law regarding use of digital images and information. It is NOT true that anything on the web is free for use. The US Copyright Office offers a summary.

Digital Performance Archive
Based in England, this site attempts to archive current activity in digital arts as well as provide access to past work.

Histories of Internet Art: Fictions and Factions
A variety of interactive and digital art and artists (including biographical information and interviews), hosted by the University of Colorado Art Department.

International Digital Art Awards
Provides both information on the award (The Harries) and digital exhibition space.

MAAP : Multimedia Arts Asia Pacific
Links to artists, organizations, resources and events for the artist working throughout Asia (including Australia and India)

Truly Virtual Web Art Museum
Current and archived exhibits of cyberart, virtual art and animation.

Wikipedia: Digital Art
While any content in Wikipedia should be evaluated carefully, this site offers useful links to various aspects of digital art.  

Free-access Journals

ArtsJournal.com
A combination of weblog and newswire, updated daily, that examines issues affecting the arts such as copyright, artists, performers and more. You can follow the Visual Arts link to focus on more specific postings.

Crossings: Electronic Journal of Art & Technology
Peer-reviewed journal looking at all aspects of art and technological applications.

deviantART
Much of the site is commercial, but the images and blog could be useful.

DigitalThread
Much of the site is commercial, but there are useful links to fonts and Photoshop coding.

Directory Of Open Access Journals
Click on "visual arts" to see freely-available full text of arts-related online journals.

Google Directory of Arts>Digital>Magazines and E-zines
Mixed bag of links to theory, art and more.

Citing Your Sources

As you write your paper, you'll need to cite passages and ideas from the sources you've found.  In order to cite your resources properly, you need to follow the style specified by your instructor. See the STYLE GUIDES to locate a quick summary online or the shelf location for the paper manual you need to use.

 

Finding Material

The library catalog tells you what we own in either physical or virtual form, but what if you need something that we don't own?

Books can be ordered through Circuit (look for the Circuit button in the library catalog.)
Articles can be located by clicking on the Check SFX for Availabilitybutton in the database you are using OR through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). ILL should be an option in Check SFX for Availabilityif there isn't a copy available in our research database collection.
Dissertations are very rarely needed, but if available for loan, can be requested through ILL.
Videos are normally not lent out through ILL, you need to go to the library that holds the item to view there or borrow yourself. You may find a video available for rent online, but they are normally very expensive.