Skip to Main Content

A Guide to Art & Design Resources

A guide to research in Art and Design resources

Book Tools

Tools for Books

 

  • Worldcat Firstsearch - Discover books in libraries worldwide. Enhanced records make this a great to to find print books even at WashU Libraries. May be possible to request via ILLiad Interlibrary Loan if WashU does not have.
  • WashU Classic Catalog - Find print and ebooks in all nine WashU Libraries
  • Quick Search - Discover books and much more. Can search at chapter level, and include many non-print resources.

 

Art & Design - Book Search Tips

// FINDING IMAGES OF OBJECTS //


     IMAGE-RICH BOOKS + THEMES IN ART

     All can be used to find image-rich books. Exhibitions and "in art" can also help find themes in art.

  • pictorial 
  • exhibitions  
  • "in art" 
  • catalogs 

     SEARCH TERMS - NARROW TO BROAD:

      Few or no results? Use broader terms for more results.  

     Still no luck?

     BRAINSTORM TERMS: 

     Catalog records do not search the full text of the books. Try various terms!

           For example, try: 

           minerals pictorial | crystals pictorial


// FINDING LETTERFORMS //

     ACROSS TIME PERIODS:


     GEOGRAPHIC AREAS:


     PRINTING METHODS AND HISTORY:

     Try these subject headings or terms in the catalog.

     Graphic design (Typography)  | Graphic design (Typography) -- History.

     Printing -- History.

     Type and type-founding. | Type and type-founding -- History

     Advertising layout and typography | Alphabets 

Ebooks

EBook Source                                            Description
                                                                                                                                  HathiTrust Digital Library offers a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Over 10 million volumes have been added to the library; of which more than 3.3 million are available full text.
The A&AePortal is an authoritative eBook resource that features important works of scholarship in the history of art, architecture, decorative arts, photography, and design. Publishers are academic presses and museums including, Yale University Press, the MIT Press, the National Gallery of Art and more.

O'Reilly Online Learning collection is over 30,000 full-text e-books and videos on design (including Fashion and Communication Design), computing, databases, networking, operating systems, programming, software engineering, .NET, Cisco products, Web design, Java, XML and more. 

To access: 

1. Click on link. 2. Institution Dropdown: Not Listed? Click Here 3. Enter WUSTL email address > Let's Go

 

The Getty Research Portal - Access digitized art, architecture and material culture publications, rare books, and related literature.        

The Internet Archive began digitizing books in 2005 and continue to scan thousands each day. Books published prior to 1926 are available for download, and hundreds of thousands of modern books are available to digitally borrow.

Books in the library can be borrowed after creating a free login.