Arts & Humanities Library
W320 Pattee Library
Penn State University
Phone: 814-865-6778
This bibliography intends to support A ED 201w by highlighting and describing reference materials useful for research projects in the history of art education --particularly the problem of researching classic books in art education. This is a list of reference books, databases, and web sites. These titles are not ones that you would normally include in the footnotes or bibliography of a research paper. Instead they are tools to help you choose readings well and to understand them. The list is organized by tool-types. Each section begins with an explanation of the type because and understanding of these formats of reference resources can help when your research takes you to more specific topics or topics in other disciplines. The names of these formats are not used consistently by publishers and librarians, nor are the names important. But understanding the type of tool, and how it can be used, is useful indeed. Some formats are: Fast Starts, Locations and Data.
People can give you both kinds of information at once: locations and data. The faculty, other students, and librarians can be good sources. I would be happy to help with your research. See my contact information and get in touch with me.
Specialized encyclopedias are fine places to get a quick start on solving many kinds of problems. They synthesize a lot of other published information. Reading a brief summary of a topic, at the beginning of your exploration, can help you make better choices as your research progresses. The best encyclopedias refer you to the essential literature on each subject (usually with brief bibliographies at the end of each entry.) Many large encyclopedias have entries on general topics, and access to more specific subjects through an index at the back. The specialized encyclopedias below feature articles signed by recognized authorities and contain well-chosen lists for further reading. Although the words are often used interchangeably, I am making a distinction between quot;encyclopedia" and quot;dictionary", reserving the latter for books that simply define terms without providing much discussion or recommended readings.
A good article that attempts to systematically review previous scholarship on a topic can help you get started in a way similar to an entry in a specialized encyclopedia. Articles that review literature can be found in many ways, but good examples for art education can be found in the Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education (N103.H36 2004, PATTEE, ARTS & HUMANITIES READY REF - 2ND FLR, W202) particularly the first three essays on historical perspectives.
Biographical dictionaries can be similar to encyclopedias, except that the only type of entries in biographical dictionaries will be the names of people. Like encyclopedias, many of the best ones refer you to other good publications on the topic. There are many possible biographical dictionaries for the artist, educator, or other person that you might want to find. A handy way to figure out which one to use is to search Biography and Genealogy Master Index. It doesn't tell you anything about the person, but it will tell you which biographical dictionary contains the information. As a matter of fact, it points to about 13 million brief biographies. If you do not find the person you want among them, you might also try the annual volumes of this biographical dictionary that Biography and Genealogy Master Index does not index:
Also remember that specialized encyclopedias such as The Dictionary of Art have many biographical entries and are not indexed in the Biography and Genealogy Master Index.
Getting the meaning of a specialized term often requires a specialized dictionary. There are many which may be useful for art history. Here are a few examples:
Web search engines can also provide fast starts on a research problem. In fact, in a few short years World Wide Web search engines have become the most popular tools by far for finding information because they are convenient, can be used without much skill, and frequently produce useful results. Remember these 5 important points about search engines:
Most web resources are self-published and vary widely in quality, so you have more work to do in evaluating them than you would with other publications. Trade and academic publishers put effort into assuring the quality of their books and magazines in order to assure that they are profitable. Only a very small percentage of web sites attempt those standards. When you use web sites you are taking on extra responsibility for judging quality. Generally, graduate students are pretty good at this type of critical evaluation. Even so, checklists of considerations (such as the ones posted at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/evaln.htm) can be helpful reminders for you or for your students.
Discourse communities can be difficult to identify on the Internet. The faculty you work with usually expect you to develop some understanding of their discourse community (those people who contribute to the knowledge of a particular discipline or topic.) A source like the Art Abstracts focuses on the publications where artists, critics, and art historians publicly contribute to their field of study. While excellent contributions can also be found on the Internet they can be difficult to identify there because of the mix of hobbyists, entrepreneurs, and others contributing information.
Search engines cannot see the contents of most databases. They are only designed to find html and similar "pages." They usually can't retrieve the contents of databases such as library catalogs or Art Abstracts or any of the nearly 400 databases that the University subscribes to. (There are a small number of exceptions to this rule. See for example Google Scholar, below.)
Using search engines well requires skills that are very similar to the ones needed for searching databases. Because search engines scan millions of items, they almost always return some results even if poor search statements are entered. But search engines usually have powerful features that are not invoked unless you specify them. Use the most unique terms that relate to your topic and learn how to search phrases - "usually surrounded by quotes like this." Learning to read and shorten URLs (web addresses) is an important skill. Another is choosing the right search engine for the right job. One easy way to learn these tricks quickly is to use the guide posted by a non-profit group called Infopeople. Their Search Tools Chart selects a small number of good search engines and web guides, explains what they are searching, and describes the search features of each. A more inclusive guide to search engines, and what jobs they are suited for, is Noodle Tools' Choose the Best.Try opening the Search Tools Chart or Noodle Tools in one window and experiment with different search engines and techniques in another.) Never settle for just one search. Experimentation is very important in web searching. For example, type any 3 unrelated search terms (frog metal wheat?) as a search statement in Google then change the order of the three terms a few times and see how the results of the search change. Or try Googlewhacking! (It's a sport. Look it up.) Trial-and-error learning is especially important with search engines since search engine companies they tend to be so secretive about their workings and features change frequently.
Google is not the best choice for every task. Some new search engines have specialties which can make them much more effective than Google for a particular need. Here are some examples related to academic research:
Of course library catalogs contain records describing the books they own, but keep in mind that most library catalogs only have a single record for each magazine title; they do not include records for each of the articles in a magazine. (For that, see "Periodical Indexes" below.) In addition to books and magazines, library catalogs may contain records for archival materials, audio-visual materials, vertical file ephemera, software, and even selected web sites. With online catalogs, as with any other database, you may need to try several methods of searching in order to get good results. One important technique is to use synonyms, related terms, and word truncation to narrow or broaden your search. Another is to notice the standard subject headings that were assigned to an item that you like, then to search with those headings.
Periodical indexes direct you to annotated in this section can be used to find articles on a particular topic or by a particular author. They often provide abstracts -- brief summaries of the article. Once you select articles that you want to read, you will need to check the title of each magazine to see if it is held in our library or to get the classification number so that you can find it on the shelves. Frequently you will see a "Get It" button which will check Penn State's holdings for you automatically.
There can be many types of primary sources, including articles written at the time of the phenomenon you are studying. Most of the periodical indexes listed above might be used for finding articles published since about the middle of the 20th century, but the ones listed below cover earlier dates.
Recently many old newspapers and magazines have been scanned and converted into electronic texts. These can make very handy ways of finding primary sources. The ones below provide keyword searching on the entire text of each article - a very powerful feature for historical research. Many "new discoveries" have resulted.
There are many ways to find large collections of pictures in books or on the Internet. Here, I simply want to emphasize a few interesting examples that are not found in books or via web search engines.
These are lists of events in chronological order. Don't take the dates as exact ones. Use these for an easy way to note what else was happening at a particular time – in politics, literature, science, etc.
Search Techniques in Selected Art Education Databases (PDF)
You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer in order to access the PDF file. If you wish to download a free copy of the Adobe Reader you may do so at the link below:
