Determining Your Information Needs
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What type of assignment is it?
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How much information do you need?
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Do you need information from a certain type of publication?
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Scholarly or professional journals
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Do you need to use primary sources?
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Diaries, interview, letters, raw data
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Do you need the information in a particular format?
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Is the point of view an issue?
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Defining Your Topic
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State your topic as a question
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Helps clarify you focus and clarify your thoughts
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Identify the main concepts
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Pick out the significant terms in your question
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Make a list of related terms (this will help you when searching for information)
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May suggest ways to broaden or narrow your topic
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Finding Books
To identify books on your topic:
Library Catalog
The catalog contains all of the books and other materials owned by the library. The best way to identify materials related to your topic is by a "Word" search.
Summit
The Summit catalog allows you to search for books at most college and university libraries in Oregon and Washington. The books you request are delivered to Reed within 2-3 days.
WorldCat
Catalog of books and other materials in over 50,000 libraries worldwide. Contains over 52 million records. Click on the ILL button at the top of WorldCat's search page to order these materials.
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Encyclopedias & Dictionaries
Encyclopedias and dictionaries are reference sources which provide background information. There are two types, general and subject oriented.
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General encyclopedias offer introductory information on a variety of subjects and often have a brief bibliography at the end of each topic. Subject encyclopedias focus on a specific topic often with an extensive bibliographies.
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Subject dictionaries offer definitions or short explanations of the concepts used in a specific subject area.
Art in the modern era : a guide to styles, schools & movements 1860 to the present
Ref N6490.D415 2002
An introduction to the major developments in Western painting, sculpture, architecture, and design during the 19th and 20th centuries.
A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
Ref N40 .B53 1995
Covers artists from the 12th to the 20th century. Includes a chronology, illustrations of the artists and their work, and reading lists.
Contemporary artists
Ref N6490.C6567 2002
Indentifies important contemporary artists. Entries includes biographical information, bibliographies and exhibition records.
A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art
Ref N6490 .C5317 1998
Covers painting, sculpture, graphic art, and encompasses all the major movements and styles of the twentieth-century.
Dictionary of Women Artists
Ref N8354 .D53 1997
Women painters, sculptors, and photographers from the 10th to the 20th century.
Encyclopedia of World Art
Ref N31 .E533
The articles include extensive bibliographies, and approximately the last half of each volume consists of plates arranged to illustrate the articles.
Grove Dictionary of Art
Fulltext encyclopedia with over 45,000 entries covering "the visual arts worldwide from prehistory to the 1990s." Links to important art images in galleries and museums around the world. Ref N31 .D5 1996
The Oxford Companion to Western Art
Ref N33.O923 2001
Coverage of Western Art with entries on artists and their works, styles and movements, art forms and art terms from classical times to the 20th century.
The Oxford Dictionary of Art
Ref N33 .O93 1997 An overview of Western art forms and individual artists from antiquity to the present.
Picasso: the cubist portraits of Fernande Olivier
Stk N6853.P5 A4 2003
Twentieth-century artists on art : an index to writings, statements, and interviews by artists, architects, and designers
Ref NX456.R59 1996
Good resource for locating primary research sources on individual artists.
Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists
Ref N33.L353 2000
Deals with all aspects of Western art from 1300 to the present. Along with characterizations of artistic styles and individual artists, it describes and explains technical processes, theory, schools, movements, patrons and collecting, and more.
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Databases
Databases are used to find articles on a your topic. They may be general or subject specific. Unless the database is fulltext, they won't contain the articles but instead, will give you information to help you find the articles. They provide citations and often abstracts of the articles. Once you have found the citations you want, check the Print & Electronic Journals list to see if the library owns the journal in print or electronic format.
Academic Search Premier
Good, general interdisciplinary database. Good coverage of the popular literature, as well as core journals of the scholarly literature. Many fulltext articles.
ARTbibliographies Modern (1974 - present)
Literature of modern art, photography and design.
Art Abstracts (1984-present) and Art Index Retrospective (1929 - 1984)
Indexes English language arts periodicals, yearbooks, museum bulletins, and more.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index
A multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals.
ARTstor
Digital library of art images, associated information, and software tools designed to enhance teaching, learning and scholarship. Contains approximately 300,000 images of art, architecture and archeology from a wide range of cultures and time periods, with initial strengths in European, American and Asian cultures.
BHA: Bibliography of the History of Art (1973 - present)
European and American art from late antiquity to the present.
Historical Abstracts 1954 - present
Index, with abstracts, to research in world history (excluding North America) from 1450 through the 20th Century.
JSTOR
Fulltext is available online from extensive backfile volumes of journals in history and other disciplines through JSTOR.
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Finding Print & E-Journals
Once you identify a citiation for an article using a database, or if you just want to browse a journal title, you must determine if the library subscribes to the journal. At this time, the best way to do so is to use the Print & Electronic Journals list. For help using the Print & Journals List, or finding journals in general, try How Do I Find Articles?.
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Annotated Bibliography Samples
Latin American Women Artists, Kahlo and Look Who Else: a Selective, Annotated Bibliography
Ref N6502.5.P84 1996
Annotations are primarily of periodical articles, although some books are analyzed as well. Some brief annotations and some lengthy annotations.
Feminist Art Criticism: an Annotated Bibliography
Ref N72.F45 L36 1993
References include books, pamphlets, articles, exhibition catalogs, and more. Many detailed annotation examples.
Erotic Art: an Annotated Bibliography With Essays
Ref N8217.E6 B87 1989
Very brief annotations.
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Style Manuals
Style manuals contain information to help you set up your paper in the proper format as well as showing you how to cite information found in the sources listed above.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
Ref LB2369 .G53 2003
A short guide to writing about art
Stk N7476.B37 1993
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