How to find Fine Art Images

USING THE LIBRARY CATALOG

Use the Library Catalog to find books on art that will have illustrations of paintings, sculpture, or architecture.

Go to the Library Home Page: http://www.nvcc.edu/library/ and click on the Library Catalog.

Do a SUBJECT search on “art” to see a list of all the books the College Libraries own with the Subject Heading “Art”.

Remember when searching the library catalog you will see results from ALL campus libraries. To find books at the Alexandria Campus look for the location “AL”.

The libraries own over 4,000 books on art.

To narrow your search, do a KEYWORD search. Identify your keywords and join them together with “AND” (in capital letters).

Identify what kind of art you are looking for, for example: Egyptian, Classical, Renaissance, Abstract, Post-Modern, etc

Combine with “art”.

Do a Keyword Search on “art AND Egyptian” or “Art AND Neoclassical” or “Art AND Leonardo” or “art AND Poussin” to narrow your search and receive more specific results.

The books in the library are arranged by subject in Library of Congress Call Number Order. The Call Numbers are a series of letters and numbers, arranged in alphabetical and numerical order, representing the subject of the book. Once you find one book on your topic, additional books on the same topic will be in the same area on the shelf.

ART books all have a call number beginning with “N”.

If you want to check the book out and take it home, make sure it is a “CIRCULATING” book, meaning it may be checked out with your student ID and taken home for 3 weeks.

Circulating books are located in the tall shelves on the lower level of the library.

FINDING REFERENCE BOOKS

Reference Books are standard sources that cannot be checked out of the library. They may be useful for getting started in your search, finding background information, browsing for further information, or getting an overview of a topic.

The Reference materials may not be taken out of the library, so they will always be available for you to consult. They are located in the short shelves behind the Reference Desk.

Reference Books on art will be found in the “REF N” section. A few sources you may wish to consult are:

THE DICTIONARY OF ART. REF N31 D5 1996

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD ART. REF N31 E4833

THE McGRAW-HILL DICTIONARY OF ART. REF N33 M23

GREAT ARTISTS OF THE WESTERN WORLD. REF N40 G77 1987

GREAT ARTISTS OF THE WESTERN WORLD II. REF N40 G77 1988

THE OXFORD COMPANION TO WESTERN ART. REF N33 O923 2001

THE PRAEGER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART. REF N33 P68

CITING SOURCES

When you find an image or additional information you can use, be sure to document where you found it so that you can find it again if you need to. Be sure to copy down the title, author, publisher, place of publication and date of publication of any book you use, and the page number on which you found your information. If you found the book in the library, it’s a good idea to copy down the call number as well so you can find the book again if you need to.

If you write a paper or present a project, you need to give credit for the sources you used, and the publication information (usually called the bibliographic details) will help you do so.

USING THE INTERNET

The internet can be a good source of information about art and a great source for images.

Use Caution when searching the internet. There are no editors or publishing controls on the internet, so you, the searcher, must use your judgment to evaluate the resources you find!

Try to find academic resources (indicated by “.edu” in the domain name, or web-page address).

To find images of fine art, use a search engine (I recommend google.com)

Do a search on “art images” (using quotation marks in Google and all other search engines tells the computer that you want to search on that exact phrase, with those words in precisely that order, and next to each other. It makes your search more precise).

You can make the search more specific by adding additional keywords to your “art images” search.

Remember, if you find a page that is useful, you can use the “similar pages” feature to find additional sites with similar content.

Here are some useful web pages. You might find others:

http://www.art-design.umich.edu/mother/images.html (an online image collection from the University of Michigan)

http://www.guggenheim.org/image_archive/index.html (the image archive from the Guggenheim Museum in New York)

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html (a vast collection of links and images maintained by Chris Witcombe, professor of art at Sweet Briar College)

If you are looking for an image of a specific artwork, try Google’s “Image” feature: http://www.google.com/imghp

Do a search on an artist’s name, the name of a work, or an artistic period to find online images.

A GOOD PLACE TO START ONLINE RESEARCH

The library homepage has useful links to help you begin your research (http://www.nvcc.edu/library/internet.htm). These online sources have been reviewed and selected by NVCC librarians and faculty members:

http://www.nvcc.edu/library/bow/elecart.htm (Best of the Web. Useful and reliable Art Sites chosen by the NVCC library staff)

http://library.cc.va.us/tutorial/vccsguides.htm#ART (an online research guide on art resources selected by NVCC staff)

THE INTERNET FINE PRINT: READ THIS!

Remember that images on the web may not be of the same quality as printed images. The colours may vary according to the browser you use, the age of your computer, or the sophistication of your monitor.

Remember that the internet is an ephemeral medium, meaning that it changes ALL THE TIME. What you find today may be gone tomorrow.

Document, document, document. When you find a resource on the internet, be sure to copy down the exact URL (web page address) where you found your source. It is also a good idea to copy and keep the search strategy you used to find the site in the first place (the search engine and the key words you used).

Copyright. Yes, images on the internet are subject to copyright, just like images in a book. Don’t abuse them. You can use on-line images for educational purposes like sketching, but if you want to reproduce the image (make a copy) in a paper, a presentation, or a report, you should seek permission to do so. Some web pages give permission for the use of their images, and others explain how to receive permission or where to seek it. Always try to find the copyright restrictions posted on a web page, and even if restrictions are not posted, don’t abuse someone else’s right to copy.

Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate. Can you tell if the online resource you found is accurate and trustworthy? Do you know who created the site, and for what purpose? Is the site old? Has it been recently updated? Are the links active? Can you tell if the author of the site is an expert? Is he a professor, librarian, government official, or museum employee? These are a few of the questions you should ask yourself when trying to evaluate online resources.

ARTICLES ON INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS, WORKS OF ART, AND ART CRITICISM

If you want to find additional information about a specific work of art, artist, or period of art history, you can use the online databases that the library subscribes to. These databases will lead you to articles written in scholarly journals by art historians and art experts.

Go to the Library Homepage: http://www.nvcc.edu/library/ and click on “Magazines, Newspapers, and Reference Databases.”

You will see a list of electronic resources that the library subscribes to for your use. In the middle of the page is a list of General Resources that provide access to full-text articles on a variety of topics. You may want to try searching in “Proquest” or “Expanded Academic” to find articles on your topic. Remember to us “AND” (in caps) to connect keywords (art AND Mesopotamia), or use “quotes” to search for a phrase (“Mona Lisa”).

Further down on the Databases page is a list of “Indexes and Databases by Subject”. Notice that there is a category for “Art”. Click on the link to see a list of databases and indexes useful for doing research on art topics. The databases listed in bold have full-text articles.

THE REFERENCE DESK

Need more help? Come into the library and stop by the Reference Desk. The librarian will be happy to help you!