Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: Art Resource Guide: Recommended Databases

CUNY OneSearch is the main search engine for Brooklyn College Library collections as well as all other CUNY libraries. OneSearch makes it easy to find everything our library has on a topic, including books, articles, reference materials, and many other types of materials. OneSearch looks and feels a lot like Google--only OneSearch is limited to the library's trusted resources!

OneSearch provides a variety of ways to filter or limit your search to results. You can limit by full text articles or peer-reviewed resources, books, location, topic, date or language.

Go to the big search box on the Library’s website. This is OneSearch . It searches print books, e-books, e-book chapters and many (but not all) of our article databases at the same time.

While oneSEARCH understands natural language searches, it is good to get into the habit of setting up your searches in terms of key words and phrases, and linking them together using AND.

Refine your topic: an overly-broad search will return an unmanageable number of results, while a topic that is too narrow won't produce enough information. Play around with your search terms until you find a topic that is researchable.
Choose keywords: once you have chosen a topic, you need to identify key words that you can use to search databases. Do some research to find out if there is "official" terminology related to your topic. You may have to try a number of synonyms until you find the one that is best for your search. Tip: some databases also use specific terms called descriptors/controlled vocabulary to organize articles. Knowing the descriptors for your topic makes it easier to find relevant articles.
Combine terms: once you identify the best terms for your topic, put them together with Boolean operators such as AND (for more precision in your search), OR (to enlarge the pool of results), or NOT (to exclude possible elements unrelated to your topic). These techniques work in most databases, as well as in Google.

Sample searches: book title: “Lives of the Artists”

Subject searches:

Picasso AND (cubism OR sculpture OR assemblages)

“Jackson Pollock” AND Indians

“Louise Bourgeois” AND (gender OR sexuality)

“Jean-Michel Basquiat” AND (graffiti OR street art)

Tips for searches: Don’t use full sentences or questions

Break your topic down into keywords and phrases

Link keywords or key phrases together with AND

Use OR for synonyms or alternate terms

Use quotes to search for an exact phrase

Tips for Linking to Electronic Articles and E-Books

When linking to a journal article, e-book or e-book chapters, always select the Permalink. Select and copy the Permalink to that record that includes this EZProxy URL: https://brooklyn.ezproxy.cuny.edu/login?url=

If the article or ebook does not have the EZProxy URL, you should add it at the beginning of the article’s URL. This is necessary to ensure off-campus access. Thus the link to Academic Search Premier would look like this:
https://brooklyn.ezproxy.cuny.edu/login?url= https://cuny-bc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CUNY_BC/1llq8ma/alma9994353329206124

Interlibrary Loan

If you don’t see the article, book, book chapter, or score you want using OneSearch, our Databases or Google Scholar?

Don't despair!

If our library doesn't have what you're looking for...

Brooklyn College Interlibrary Loan can borrow it from libraries worldwide!

Just fill out your one-time new user registration form and make your request.

Please check our FAQ for detailed information.

You Can Request Items Not Found in the Brooklyn College Library

When should you use CLICS and when should you use Interlibrary Loan (ILL)?

Use CLICS for:

Books that are available at other CUNY libraries

Use ILL for:

Any book, including books owned by other CUNY libraries
Journal articles not available at the Brooklyn College Library
A/V materials such as DVDs and CDs
Book chapters

For more information about interlibary loan or to make an ILL request, visit the Interlibrary Loan page.

Recommend Databases for Art Journal Articles

The following is a list of databases specific to art history, and general subject databases that are particularly strong in the arts. All of the databases listed below with a key icon can be searched via OneSearch. However, searching individual databases can sometimes provide more precise results.

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,600 full-text periodicals, including nearly 7,500 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full-text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals.
Art Full Text This link opens in a new window
Art Full Text is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. In addition to articles, Art Full Text indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals.
Art Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
A unique resource, Art Index Retrospective helps users find contemporary criticism of art at the time of its debut, track the body of work of an artist or movement, find artists' interviews and other commentary, and much more. Users can research leading English-language sources, as well as others published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. Besides periodicals, users have access to data from important yearbooks and select museum bulletins. Coverage dates are 1929-1984, and results are limited to bibliographic information only. Not full text.
Bibliography of the History of Art/Repertoire de la Litterature de l'art This link opens in a new window
The J. Paul Getty Trust provides access to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and the Répertoire de la Litterature de l'art (RILA). The bibliographic databases, searchable together, cover European and American visual arts material. The BHA covers the years 1990-2007, and the RILA covers the years 1975-1989. Bibliographic information provided by the database includes title, document type, ISBN, and abstract, and the database includes all records with abstracts in French and English. The results are also linked by subject terms in French and English, which will allow users to connect to other related materials.

CUNY OneSearch
CUNY OneSearch allows you to search across multiple collections using the entire CUNY library system. It's a powerful tool to see what information is accessible to you using your Brooklyn College library card.

Fine Arts (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window
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Fine Arts and Music Collection provides access to scholarly journals and magazines that support research in areas including drama, music, art history, and filmmaking. The database emphasizes full-text content for publications included in the Wilson Art Index and RILM bibliography.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
A search engine for scholarly content on the web.
Humanities Source (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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A variety of scholarly journals in the humanities.

Iter - Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Iter was created for the advancement of learning in the study and teaching of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700) through the development of online resources. This database offers access to bibliographies (Bibliography of English Women Writers, 1500-1640), journals (Early Theatre), and books (New Technologies and Renaissance Studies) among other titles, providing access to a wide range of primary and secondary sources for Medieval scholars.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR offers full-text access to archival scholarly journals. It offers both multidisciplinary and discipline-specific collections, covering such topics as Art, Business, Language & Literature, Mathematics, Music, Ecology, & Botany. JSTOR includes journal content, primary sources, images, and more across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Because of JSTOR's archival mission, there is approximately a 1-5 year gap between the most recently published journal issue and the content available in the database.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
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Oxford Art Online offers access to the most authoritative, inclusive, and easily searchable online art resources available today. Through a single, elegant gateway users can access—and simultaneously cross-search—an expanding range of Oxford’s acclaimed art reference works: Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, as well as many specially commissioned articles and bibliographies available exclusively online.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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Project MUSE is a leading provider of digital humanities and social sciences content; since 1995, its electronic journal collections have supported a wide array of research needs at academic, public, special, and school libraries worldwide. MUSE books and journals, from leading university presses and scholarly societies, are fully integrated for search and discovery.

Databases for Books and E-Books

CUNY OneSearch
CUNY OneSearch allows you to search across all CUNY library collections. It's a powerful tool to see what information is accessible to you using your Brooklyn College library card. You can request print books from other CUNY libraries be sent to Brooklyn College Library for you to pick up.
Arcade
Arcade is the catalog of the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC). Arcade unites the collections of the Frick Art Reference Library and the libraries of the Brooklyn Museum and The Museum of Modern Art.

Proquest Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
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Ebrary is an information delivery service that features a growing selection of more than 36,000 titles from more than 200 leading academic, STM, and professional publishers. Ebrary allows an unlimited number of users of any one book in the database at a given time. Portions of books may be downloaded as PDF files, and entire books may be downloaded and read using Adobe Digital Editions reader.
EBSCO eBook collection This link opens in a new window
Access to the full text of reference, scholarly, and professional books. EBSCO eBooks are digital full-text versions of books such as reference works, scholarly monographs, literature and fiction (at Brooklyn College, almost 6,000 titles), and 3,400 publicly-accessible titles. EBSCO books are viewable online and may be checked out and viewed or downloaded using the Adobe Digital Editions reader. The reader is available free at http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/. The list of compatible devices is available at http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/supported-devices.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
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Gale Virtual Reference Library lets you search in many of Gale's multidisciplinary reference publications, including subject encyclopedias, almanacs, and other topical sources.
Getty Research Portal This link opens in a new window
This portal provides access to over 20,000 digitized art history texts, rare books and related literature in the public domain. The holdings represent some of the finest art library collections worldwide.

HathiTrust
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

WorldCat (FirstSearch) This link opens in a new window
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Combines the catalogs of thousands of libraries in the US and worldwide. Brooklyn College users can use WorldCat to directly request a book on Interlibrary Loan.

Museum Publications

Getty Publications Virtual Library
A free digital backlist of titles from the Getty Publications Archives.
Guggenheim Publications
As a vital part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s mission as an educational institution, the Guggenheim Museum’s Publishing and Digital Media Department publishes books and catalogues to document its exhibitions and collections. Guggenheim publications are renowned for the high quality of their design and production, as well as for the depth of their scholarship.
LACMA Reading Room
The Reading Room is a special corner of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's website dedicated to catalogues and brochures of exhibitions past. These are out-of-print, hard-to-find publications available here in full for free. From a unique set of publications focused on the Southern California art scene to rare books about German Expressionism, modern art, Southeast Asian art, and more, the catalogues and brochures here reflect the depth and breadth of LACMA’s collection and exhibition history. We continue to add new publications on an ongoing basis.
MetPublications
MetPublications is a portal to the Met's comprehensive publishing program with 1,500 titles, including books, online publications, and Bulletins and Journals from the last five decades.

Library &
Academic IT

Library & Academic IT

Art Resource Guide: Recommended Databases

Interlibrary Loan

Recommend Databases for Art Journal Articles

Databases for Books and E-Books

Museum Publications