LibGuides: Art History: Databases

Databases

A library database is a large, searchable, online collection of published scholarly materials. The ANU Library subscribes to over 620 scholarly databases, containing many millions of searchable items, including scholarly journal articles, newspaper articles, images, streaming videos, music, and other academic publications.

You can start you exploration here E-resources and databases.

Please note, the databases listed are available to ANU students and staff on and off campus. Login and password are required for remote access - remember to select the option 'ANU Library Home Page.'

Databases for Art History

ARTbibliographies Modern (ABM)
ARTbibliographies Modern (ABM) indexes and provides abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogues, dissertations, and exhibition reviews published since the late 1960s. ABM covers contemporary art and modern art from the late 19th century onwards. Subjects include: art history & theory, performance, installation, film & video, digital art, animation, body art, graffiti, textile design, jewellery, artist's books, theatre design, ceramics, glass, graphic design, fashion, photography, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.
Art and Architecture Archive: Art and Photography Collection
Users can search the full text, browse and retrieve articles and view illustrations, photographs, and technical plans in detail and in context.
With deep backfile coverage, from the publications’ first issues through to this century, this is an essential resource for researching the history of the arts, from the late-19th to the 21st century, and accessing key primary sources for the study of culture and society.
Consists of 22 titles including:
• American Craft
• Antique Collector
• Aperture
• Apollo
• Art and AsiaPacific
• Art Monthly
• Bead Journal
• Border Crossings
• British Journal of Photography
• C Magazine
• Ceramics Technical
• Connoisseur
• Goya
• Make
• Ornament
• Popular Photography
• Professional Artist
• Sculpture
• Southwest Art
• Studio Potter
• Surface
• WomanCraft
Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
This comprehensive resource covers fine, decorative and commercial art-forms. It includes many artists and all genres of art through access to full text articles from 1995 and indexes/abstracts from 1984 along with 200,000 art reproductions. It is also useful for research into fields as diverse as women’s, media or cultural studies as well as history, anthropology and industrial design.
Art Index Retrospective (H.W. Wilson)
Art Index Retrospective is an index to nearly 600 art periodicals published between 1929 and 1984. Coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. In addition to articles, Art Index Retrospective indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in periodicals, and citations to over 25,000 book reviews.
ARTSTOR
ARTSTOR provides access to more than 2.5 million digital images that cover the arts, architecture, humanities, and the sciences from museums, photo archives, scholars and artists. In 2024, the ARTSTOR platform and content became available as part of the JSTOR platform as part of JSTOR's broader multimedia content offerings.
International Bibliography of Art (IBA)
The definitive resource for scholarly literature on Western art, IBA is the successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA), and retains the editorial policies which made BHA one of the most trusted and frequently consulted sources in the field.
Oxford Art Online (formerly the Grove Dictionary of Art Online)
Oxford Art Online is the access point for the Grove Dictionary of Art and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists. In addition, users can access the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics and the Oxford Companion to Western Art.
Oxford Art Online: Latin American & Caribbean Art
Oxford Art Online includes full text articles in visual arts and art history, image links, thumbnail art images and line drawings. Coverage includes time periods, movement, medium, geography, styles, cultures and people.

RKD-artists
This database of artists from the RKD (Documentation Centre of the Netherlands Institute of Art History) is the largest freely accessible online database (around 250,000 artists from all countries from 1200 to the present day). It also contains information on personalities from the art world, dealers, collectors and art historians. Entries include biographical and bibliographical information.

Multidisciplinary databases for art history research

Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
Offers full text, abstracts, and bibliographic indexing of the most notable scholarly sources in the humanities, as well as specialized magazines. Among the disciplines included are literature and language, history, philosophy, archaeology, classical studies, folklore, gender studies, performing arts, religion, and theology. Content includes feature articles, interviews, bibliographies, obituaries, as well as original works of fiction, drama, poetry and reviews.
Informit Online
A collection of full-text and indexed abstract databases regarding Australian issues; includes Australian Public Affairs - Fulltext; Humanities & Social Sciences Collection; FAMILY - Australian Family & Society Abstracts Database; 'MAIS - Multicultural Australia and Immigration Studies.
JSTOR
A broad and comprehensive electronic archive of scholarly journal literature in full text, JSTOR has a moving wall which excludes the most current content for a period of between three to five years. It contains academic journals, images, and primary source materials in the social sciences, humanities, and sciences.
Project MUSE
Project Muse is an e-journal collection of full-text scholarly journals in the humanities, arts and social sciences from leading University presses and scholarly societies.
ProQuest
A multidisciplinary database which provides access to 37 ProQuest databases, with a variety of content across more than 160 subjects including business, science and technology, health and medical, social science, arts and humanities, and international news. Contents include abstract, index, and full text articles.