Art and Design Database Links

Please note that the following art and design subscription databases are available for your use in the Library and on-campus only:

Database Details

ARTbibliographies Modern (ABM)

Subject Coverage
ABM provides information on modern and contemporary arts dating from the late 19th century onwards, including photography since its invention. It covers both famous and lesser-known artists, movements, and trends. The coverage of ABM is wide-ranging and includes installation works, video art, electronic art and artists' books as well as traditional media including painting, printmaking, sculpture, and drawing.

In the field of design it includes ceramic and glass art, graphic design, calligraphy, illustration, fashion and also museum and theatre design.

Major areas of coverage include:

Art history
Art theory
Body art
Cartoons and caricatures
Computer art
Conservation and restoration
Costume Crafts
Design
Ethnic and tribal art
Fibre arts
Folk art
Forgeries
Graffiti
Iconography
Interior decoration
Illustration
Jewellery
Museums and galleries
Music and art
Performance art
Philosophy and art
Photography
Pottery
Religion and art
Sculpture
Society and art
Symbolism
Textiles
Typography
Woodwork

Dates of Coverage
ABM covers material published from 1974 onwards.

Update Frequency
Monthly.

Rate of Growth
More than more than 13,000 new entries added each year. (Size: Over 372,256 records as of January 2009)

Types of Publication Covered
Journal articles, books, catalogues, PhD dissertations, exhibition reviews

Current Serials List
Click here to see the list of serials currently covered by ABM

Special Features
An online thesaurus is available.

Note on ABM Database

ABM provides detailed references and full abstracts for each entry, but it does not provide the full text of the item. In many cases the journals containing the articles will be held by NCAD Library, or they may be available through inter-library loan.

The currency of coverage varies from one journal to another. You can discover which is the most recent issue of a particular journal to be added to the database by entering the journal name and selecting ‘Journal Name’ from the drop-down menu on the Advanced Search screen. Click the Search button and the article reference that appears at the top of the list of hits will be taken from the most recent issue covered.

Art Full Text Art

Full Text is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from more than 500 serials published throughout the world. Full-text coverage for nearly 200 serials is included.

Subject Coverage
Art Full Text is now providing expanded coverage of Latin American, Canadian, Asian and non-Western art, new artists, contemporary art, exhibition reviews, and feminist criticism.

Major areas of coverage include:

Advertising
Antiques
Archaeology
Architectural History
Architecture
Art History
Computers in Art
Crafts
Decorative Arts
Fashion Design
Folk Art
Graphic Arts
Interior Design
Industrial Design
Landscape Architecture
Motion Pictures
Museology
Non-Western Art
Painting
Photography
Pottery
Sculpture
Television
Textiles
Video

Dates of Coverage
Indexing coverage begins in 1984; abstracting coverage begins in 1994; full-text coverage begins in 1997.

Update Frequency
Daily.

Types of Publication
Covered Periodical coverage includes English-language serials, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as serials published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish.

Features

Special art subject thesaurus to facilitate accurate searching
Indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed serials
Links to websites cited by articles help users to find related information and images.

Serials List
Visit the Journal Directory for a searchable list of the serials covered.

Note on Art Full Text Database .

“The H.W. Wilson Company has decades of experience in indexing journals, and the quality of the database entries is very high. … Indexing is very current.... Indexing is also very thorough."—Curator (July 2008)

The material included in the database is of a high scholarly standard. More than 40% of the sources indexed are peer-reviewed (reviewed by subject specialists before publication).Occasionally NCAD students express disappointment when they fail to retrieve the full text of a particular article on this database. It is important to remember that while there is an in-depth (50 to 300 words) abstract for every article indexed, not every item is offered in full text form. This resource is particularly useful for those researching topics relating to the history of art, architecture and design.

Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI)

Subject Coverage
DAAI covers both contemporary designers and craft artists as well as the development of design and craft since the mid-19th century.

Major areas of coverage include:

Advertising
Animation
Architecture
Book design
Ceramics
Computer aided design
Computer graphics
Design history
Design management
Education
Exhibitions
Garden design
Glass
Graphic design
Fashion and clothing
Furniture
Illustration
Inclusive design
Industrial design
Interior design
Jewellery
Landscape architecture
Metalsmithing
Packaging
Product design
Retail design
Textiles
Theatre
Typography and type design
Universal design
Urban design
Vehicles
Web design

Dates of Coverage
DAAI covers material published from 1973 onwards.

Update Frequency
Monthly.

Size
Over 195,807 records as of January 2009.

Rate of Growth
Around 1,200 new entries added monthly.

Types of Publication Covered
Articles, news items, and reviews published in design and applied arts journals.

Features
Entries indicates the number and in some cases type of illustrations (e.g. floorplans) in the article, and whether the article includes a bibliography or biographical note.

Current Serials List
Click here to see the list of serials currently covered by DAAI

Note on DAAI Database

Like ABM, this database provides detailed references and full abstracts for each entry, but it does not provide the full text of the item. In many cases, the journals containing the articles will be held by NCAD Library, or they may be available through inter-library loan.

DAAI has the same user interface as ABM. Once you have become familiar with using one database it is very easy to carry out searches on the other. It is possible to search both databases simultaneously, i.e. on the search screen click Specific Databases, and tick the boxes for both databases. Then click Continue to Search.

The currency of coverage varies from one journal to another. You can discover which is the most recent issue of a particular journal to be added to the database by entering the journal name and selecting ‘Journal Name’ from the drop-down menu on the Advanced Search screen. Click the Search button and the article reference that appears at the top of the list of hits will be taken from the most recent issue covered.

Ergonomics Abstracts

Ergonomics Abstracts is an international abstracting service, spanning the world of ergonomics and human factors.

Subject Coverage
Ergonomics Abstracts focuses not only on mainstream ergonomics, but also on related material from psychology, physiology, biomechanics, job design, human-computer interaction, safety science, human engineering, medicine, occupational health, sport and transport.

Major areas of coverage include:

Display and Control Design
Environment
General Ergonomics
Health and Safety
Human Characteristics
Information Presentation and Communication
Methods and Techniques
Performance Related Factors
Social and Economic Impact of the System
System Characteristics
Work Design and Organisation
Workplace and Equipment Design

Dates of Coverage
Records date back to 1985. The database is updated regularly.

Size of Database
The database contains over 126,500 records. It abstracts articles from over 300 journals.

Types of Publication
Covered Journal articles, books, reports and conference proceedings.

Features

It is possible to browse the database by classification (subject category). Each abstract is classified using a hierarchically organised classification scheme. The scheme has 12 classification terms at the highest level, and in total 638 classification terms are used.
The full text of journal articles can be ordered through the British Library Direct service or through interlibrary loan.
The site provides links to related ergonomics publications.

Current Serials List
Click here to see the list of journals covered by Ergonomics Abstracts

Note on Ergonomics Abstracts Database

This online resource and reference tool is produced by subject specialists. The database represents a collaboration between the Ergonomics Information Analysis Centre at the Taylor & Francis Ergonomics Resource Facility at the University of Birmingham, and the publishers Taylor & Francis. The Ergonomics Information Analysis Centre holds most of the material in the database and it is possible to visit the Centre at the University of Birmingham (by appointment only).

Due to the changing frames of reference in modern scientific research and application, Ergonomics Abstracts’ currency is a very important factor.

The aim of Ergonomics Abstracts is to cover ALL aspects of ergonomics and human factors. However, over the last few years, the topics of human-computer interaction and work-related musculoskeletal disorders have become increasingly predominant in its subject emphasis.

The classification scheme is a useful learning tool. For example, if you want a summary of the different kinds of fatigue, they are listed in section 6.4 of the classification scheme:

6.4 Fatigue
6.4.1 visual fatigue
6.4.2 auditory fatigue
6.4.3 fatigue of other sensory modalities
6.4.4 mental fatigue
6.4.5 physical fatigue
6.4.6 motor and postural fatigue

The Ergonomics Information Analysis Centre at the University of Birmingham houses 90% of the original material cited in Ergonomics Abstracts. The Centre is open to visitors on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, between 8.00 am and 3.30 pm. (Please ask for a letter of introduction from the Library if you are planning a visit).

Because of strict copyright regulations, the Centre is unable to supply copies of actual papers. While it does not supply material through inter-library loan, the Centre will provide information about links, so that papers can be purchased from the relevant journal directly. In some cases where papers are no longer available on-line or through other means, or are from conference proceedings prior to the Internet, they may be able to supply photocopies at cost if this is for a student’s personal research, as per copyright regulations.

JSTOR

JSTOR is a huge, full-text database of scholarly journals. The archive is unique in terms of scale and content. NCAD does not subscribe to the entire archive, but to two collections; Arts & Sciences I, which covers 119 journal titles in 15 disciplines, and Arts & Sciences III which focuses on the arts. There are 150 titles in this collection.

Subject Coverage
Languages and literature, music, film studies, folklore, performing arts, religion, and the history and study of art and architecture. Other subjects include economics, history, political science, and sociology, as well as other key fields in the humanities and social sciences. The collection also contains titles in ecology, mathematics, and statistics.

Major areas of coverage include:

African American Studies
Anthropology
Architecture & Architectural History
Art & Art History
Asian Studies
Business
Economics
History
Language & Literature
Mathematics
Music
Performing Arts
Philosophy
Political Science
Population Studies
Religion
Sociology
Statistics
Other subjects such as Education, Feminist & Women’s Studies, Film Studies and Finance are also covered.

Dates of Coverage
The earliest journal covered dates back to 1603. There is good coverage of nineteenth and early twentieth century material. Coverage varies from one journal to another depending on the dates of publication.

Growth of Database: The entire database covers over one thousand scholarly journals. JSTOR has digitized more than 27 million pages of printed literature. It digitizes on average 400,000 new pages each month and over 4.5 million pages annually.

Types of Publication Covered
The majority of content in the archive is journal literature, though inclusion of other materials such as conference proceedings, transactions, pamphlets, monographs, manuscripts, and other materials is growing.

Features

The entire database is full-text searchable
It offers search term highlighting
It includes high-quality images
Entries are interlinked by citations and references.

Serials List
To browse the list of journal covered by NCAD’s subscription to JSTOR, click here

Note on JSTOR Database

For each of the journal titles, the time period between the last issue available in the JSTOR archive and the most recently published issue of a journal is referred to as the "moving wall." The majority of journals in the archive have moving walls of between 3 and 5 years, but publishers may elect walls anywhere from zero to 10 years. Users must not expect to find current or recent issues of journals in the database.

This archive is likely to be of particular interest to those engaged in interdisciplinary and historical research.