El Greco
Madonna and Child
oil on canvas
c. 1590
All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art -- Sol LeWitt
Monographs are books that focus on a particular topic, and are often by a single author. Monographs include exhibition catalogs and make up the bulk of the NUL Art library collection. With the inclusion of books of essays, reference works and other non-monographic works, the Art Librry contains well over 100,000 books on art and architecture.
- To locate books, use the libraries' discovery system, NUsearch, located on the libraries' home page.
- When you search in NUsearch, you will also find articles in your search results. To exclude them, change the NUsearch box to "Books and Multimedia."
- Once you have a list of results you may wish to further limit your results using the descriptors in the left side bar. To limit to ebooks only, chooose "Full Text Online" under "Availability.
Abount ebooks . . . traditionally, art books have been a little late to convert to ebook format. This is because Images present technological and copyright-based obstacles for publishers. However, we do have ebooks-- see the tip above and the resources below for locating them.
We do not always have what you're looking for. InterLibrary Loan is your first option, but we may also purchase books at your request:
Free Access During the Pandemic
Free Temporary Access Guide: This library research guide points to a large number of free resources available across all disciplines during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is kept up-to-date by NUL librarians, but please let us know if you have any trouble with these resources as access privileges are under constant review by the various publishers and presses.
Ebooks
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A&AePortalOnline collection of key backlist and out-of-print scholarly works in the fields of art and architectural history published by: The Art Institute of Chicago, The MIT Press, Yale University Press, Harvard Art Museums, and the Yale University Art Gallery. The portal allows the user to browse all images (by artist, title, or date) and allows instructors to easily create custom coursepacks.
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The Getty Research PortalAt present, the Portal aggregates 170,000 digitized volumes from from nearly 40 participating institution.around the world. You have free and open access to all titles found via the Getty Research Portal.
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Getty Publications Virtual LibraryPart of the mission at the Getty is to produce "innovative and long-lasting digital publications" on an open platform as a part of the growing interest in addressing the specific needs of art scholars when creating digital publications. Search or Browse this growing collection of more than 300 Getty ebooks. Read online, or download.
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MetPublicationsThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is offering full text access to many of their publications, including scholarly texts, exhibition catalogs, and their two journals, the Metropolitan Museum Journal, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal. Though most texts are available full text, a few are only partially available via Google Books.
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National Gallery of ArtScroll down to NGA Online Editions for a look at the National Gallery's free e-books.
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The British Museum Online Research CataloguesThe British Museum offers eleven research catalogues covering art objects (mostly from the ancient world, but also including Rembrandt and His School and Russian Icons).
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowDigitized, full-text versions of core scholarly journals across disciplines.While coverage of these journals goes back to the first issue, for most journals the most recent issues will be for 3-5 years ago. JSTOR now includes online access to select ebook titles
Bibliographies & Multi-Library Catalogs
Bibliographies can be very useful in collecting a group of information resources on a particular topic, Resources collected and published as bibliographies have the added benefit of being recommended by an expert in the field, though they may not include the most recent publications. Library catalogues are good sources for comprehensive searches of the literature.
Oxford Bibliographies: Art History
- Oxford University Press publishes many bibliographies on various topics. This growing collection covers art history generally. Others, (which can be found in the libraries catalog) may cover the many subtopics of Roman Art, or Urban planning for example.
- Worldcat connects you to the collections and services of over 10,000 libraries across the world. Essentially the word's largest card catalog, it can be invaluable in locating difficult to find resources.
- Gallica is the free digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Kubikat is the collective catalogue of four of the leading German scholarly research institutes in the field of art history:
- Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Max-Planck-Institut
- Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich
- Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte / Centre allemand d'histoire de l'art in Paris
- Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Rome
Catalogues Raisonnes
Catalogues Raisonné
These are usually multi-volume sets that chronicle the entire output of an artist's career. Extensively researched, they are often considered definitive pieces of scholarship. While not every artist merits a catalogue raisonné, the library has examples for most major Western artists. Catalogues Raisonnés are also often broaken down by media, for instance "the comeplete paintings" or "the complete drawings." To find catalogues raisonné, search "catalogues raisonne" AND the artists name as a keyword search. Catalogues raisonné do not circulate.
- Artifex Press is a publisher of online catalogues raisonnes of late 20th century and contemporary artists. Each catalogue raisonne has an individual record our library catalog, but you can find all the Artifex publications at this site, provided your internet connection is through NU>
- IFAR Catalogues Raisonnés is a database of both published and in progress catalogues raisonnes.
Other NUL Collections
Charles Deering Library of Special Collections and University Archives
- The Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections contains an outstanding assemblage of rare, unique and antiquarian art resources, and houses the library's collection of artist's books.
Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies
- The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, the largest library collection of Africana in the world, has an extensive collection of materials relating to arts in and about Africa.