North Seattle Community College North Seattle Community College
Library & Media Services

Research Guide for Art, Artists, and Society

Prepared by Elinor Appel
NSCC Librarian (contact info.)

NSCC Library (this will open in a new window)

 

Image source: Art Institute of Chicago exhibition "Typing for Tomorrow"

Books

Reference Books (first floor) - use these books for images and background information on movements in art and literature or people who participated in these movements. Your "ism" (or topic) may be found in a number of related books. Some examples:

  • The Cinema Book [Ref PN 1994.C489 1999]
  • A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes [Ref NX 456.K67 2001]
  • Encyclopedia of Modern Architecture [Ref NA 680.E5]
  • The Encyclopedia of Sculpture [Ref NB 198.E53 2004]
  • Gardners Art Through the Ages [Ref N 5300.G25 2005]
  • An Illustrated History of Furnishing [Ref NK 1860 P713]
  • Modern Art [Ref N 6447.H86]
  • The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians [Ref ML 100.N48 2001]
  • Phaidon Encyclopedia of Expressionism [Ref NX 600.E9 R5213 1978]
  • Phaidon Encyclopedia of Surrealism [Ref NX 600.S9 P3713]
  • Popular Musicians [Ref ML 105.P66 1999]

Circulating Books (second floor) - use these books to find more in-depth information on your topic.

Refer to Finding Books for tips on searching the catalog using keywords and subjects. Begin with a Keyword Relevance search:

Then f ind a title that looks good. . .

Click on that title to open up the record. Check location, call number, and availability.

Locate the Subjects and click on these to find more titles on your topic.

Books will be grouped on the shelves by subject. Be sure and browse the area for more and perhaps better books on your topic. You may find you will be looking for books in several areas, all of which cover your topic. Call number areas and where the books are:

Fine Arts (N area):

  • Architecture - NA
  • Arts (general) - NX
  • Drawing, design & illustration - NC
  • Painting - ND
  • Sculpture - NB

Language and Literature (P area):

  • American literature - PS
  • Drama, Television, Film - PN
  • English literature - PE

Music and Books on Music (M area):

  • Books about music - ML

Articles

Refer to Finding Articles for tips on how to search a periodical database. Search ProQuest using keywords and topics.

  • and – for combining concepts/keywords, will narrow the search: dada and dali
  • or – when you are using related terms, will broaden the search: dada or surrealisim
  • “ ” – when you are using a phrase: “performance art”
  • * – when the terms have related stems: art* for art, artist, artists, etc.
  • ( ) – to organize your search phrase: dali and ("dada* or surrealism)

Possible periodical databases to search:

  • ProQuest - general database with articles ranging from news to scholarly
  • Academic Search Premier - another general database with a range of articles
  • eLibrary - contains some images and transcripts as well as articles

Possible reference databases to search:

  • ARTstor - contains excellent online reproductions of art (paintings, sculpture, furniture, etc.) as well as related prints and photographs
  • Britannica.com - online encyclopedia (this for-pay version has more content than the free online version)
  • Contemporary Authors - critical and biographical information on modern poets, playwrights, and writers

Websites

Refer to Searching the Internet for tips on searching the Internet effectively using Google. Simply limiting your search by domain (site:edu or site:gov) is often a good way to start. Some web resources:

General

Fine Art

Film

Music

Citing Your Sources

You will be formatting your Works Cited page according to the MLA citation style guide. Other citation links:

Still confused? Librarians will be glad to help you further.

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