Databases for Finding Design History Articles
Begin by searching the databases below to find periodical article citations and full text periodical articles on your topic.
If you are off-campus, sign in to use the resources below with your netID and password.
50 databases Northwestern subscribes to for Art and Architecture, listed A-Z
(click for the full list and descriptions of each resource)
Highlights found there which are particularly helpful for design topics include:
- Art & Architecture Source This link opens in a new windowArt & Architecture Source provides indexing and abstracting for journals, magazines and books covering topics, including art in all media, art history and criticism, architecture, archaeology, museum studies, graphic arts and advertising, product design, interior design, costume and set design, and television, video, & film from all parts of the world and all periods of time. Covers sources from 1914 to the present with selected full text.
- Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals This link opens in a new windowThe Avery Index to Architectural Periodicalsindexesarticles published in U.S. and foreign journals 1930-present coveringinternational, scholarly and popular periodical literature on the architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia. It also provides citation records for architects' obituaries.Subjects include architecture, city planning, conservation and restoration, interior design, museums, and sustainable design.
- Berg Fashion Library This link opens in a new windowThe Berg Fashion Library provides access to the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, e-books, e-journals, a museum directory, reference works, images, foundational works on fashion across the globe, since 1600.The database isupdated 3 times a year.A specially-created taxonomy allows users to refine by place, period, themes, textiles and more.
- Index to 19th-Century American Art Periodicals This link opens in a new windowThe Index to 19th-Century American Art Periodicals providesthe entire contents of42 art journals published in the U.S. between 1800-1899,as well as abstracts for all articles in those journals.Contents includearticles, art notes, illustrations, stories, poems, and advertisements, covering artists and illustrators, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, architecture and design, exhibitions and sales, decoration, and collecting.
- 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.
Design history titles in JSTOR include Design Issues, Design Quarterly, the Journal of Design History, and West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture - Vogue Archive This link opens in a new windowVogueArchive contains theentire runof Vogue magazine (U.S. edition), from1892 to the current issue. All content, including covers, images, fold-outs,and advertisements, is fully searchable and updatedmonthly.
Google Scholar
You can also use Google Scholar to find links to article or book citations in other texts, or related materials.
Getting the Articles Themselves
Once you have found a list of citations for articles on your topic in the databases, how do you get the articles themselves?
- Sometimes the full text of the article is already attached to the database citation, as a PDF or HTML file. (Yay!) If so, just click to open, save, or print it!
- More often, the databases provide the citation only, telling you where to find the articles. Check NUsearch to see if Northwestern has the periodical in our collection and if we have the issue or date you need. (Search by the title of the journal or magazine, not the title of the specific article.)
- If our library does have the title and issue/date you need, you can go to the shelf to find and scan the article yourself, or you can request that the library scan it for you.
If Northwestern does not collect the magazine or journal you need, or we do not have access to the issue or date you need, you can request the article via Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Northwestern will request a scan from another library and then forward it on to you.
Scholary vs. Popular: Periodicals Vocab
Periodicals are also called "serials," a synonym.
They are published on a predetermined schedule, such as once a week, four times a year, annually, etc. Each issue of a periodical is usually filled with multiple pieces of writing (the articles), written by multiple authors.
In general, magazines are more popular. They are written and marketed for a wide audience of anyone interested in the topic. Abitare is a good example of a popular design magazine. Popular magazines can often be found at large newsstands or mainstream bookstores, and they include advertisements for art galleries, design firms, and many consumer products in addition to their articles.
Journals are generally more scholarly, written for a narrower audience of academics and fellow scholars of the topic. The Journal of Design History is a good example of a scholarly design history journal. Journals do not usually include many advertisements, and the articles include footnotes, bibliographies, and the other aspects of scholarly research.
Periodicals by Topic
Here are links to NUsearch, Northwestern's library catalog search tool, for online and print journals and magazines on design: