Research Guides: ARHS 4973: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Databases and Articles

Boolean Logic / Connectors

Connectors—Use "and" or "or" to specify multiple words in any field. Use "not" to exclude words. Be careful with the latter; you may exclude important results because of an unexpected occurrence of the term in the excluded record(s). Some database use "and not" in place of "not."

Examples of Boolean logic:

art and gender [both terms must be present]
art or history [either term must be present]
art not sculpture [the first term must be present without the second term]

How Do I Get This Citation?

If you discover pertinent citations to journal articles in your online searches, use Find it!, OneSearch, or Fetch Item to track down your resources.

If we don't own or subscribe to the material online, you can obtain rapidly many articles and chapters via the Libraries' ILL software, ILLiad.

Article Finder

OneSearch This link opens in a new window
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Search library collections both print and online, connect to full text, request and renew, and save favorite items and searches.

ILLiad
Software to request items or scans from other libraries or from the University of Arkansas Libraries collections.

Introduction to Articles

Periodical articles can provide excellent coverage of a topic. Articles appear in scholarly journals, trade publications, and popular periodicals, as well as newspapers. You will typically use a database to search for articles by topic or author. National newspapers are excellent for critical essays on art, editorials, and reviews of exhibitions.

Many assignments require students to limit their search to scholarly or peer-reviewed articles. "Peer-reviewed," "scholarly," "academic,"and "refereed" are often used interchangeably to describe manuscripts that underwent expert review before publication.

Browsing and Tracking Down Periodicals

Print periodicals pertinent to art education are located in the Fine Arts Library and Mullins Library. Note: Periodicals in Mullins Library are arranged by call number, with the current issues of most titles on the Lobby Level. Periodicals in the Fine Arts Library are arranged alphabetically, with the latest issue on the main floor. In addition, some journals are available both print and online, and some are available only online. OneSearch, the online catalog, will specify format(s) and location(s).

Note on Controlled Vocabulary

Most searchers rely exclusively on keywords to retrieve records in databases. In many cases using keywords works well. If you wish to retrieve more precise results, try searching by the specialized terms of the database, also known as "controlled vocabulary," and often referred to as "descriptors." The order in which you enter your terms can matter as well. For example, often you can best search by author by typing the last name before the first name.

Core Resources

Art & Architecture Source This link opens in a new window
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Covers: items published 1920s-. Indexes and provides selected full text for a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design. Includes the Art Index Retrospective, in-depth indexing of nearly 600 journals and magazines published from 1929-1984.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR is a collection of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and mathematics—digitized in most cases back to the first issue. The ability to search full text across so many articles is unmatched. However, in many cases the last three to five years of volumes are not available through JSTOR.
America History & Life This link opens in a new window
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A comprehensive source for U.S. and Canadian political, social, diplomatic, and economic history, as well as cultural history. Indexes and abstracts articles from over 2,500 journals as well as books, book reviews, theses, and dissertations.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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Compiled by the Modern Language Association, MLA indexes more than 4,000 journals and series published worldwide on all topics related to literature, language, folklore, and related areas, such as film, drama, communication, and popular culture. It is also very valuable for cultural studies.
New York Times, 1851-2019 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
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Provides the full archive of the New York Times, from the first date of issue through 2006. View retrieved articles as PDFs or view the entire newpaper page for context. The detailed indexes, which cover 1851–1993, allow one to search by named person, company name, place, or type of article (editorial, obituary, review, etc.) Invaluable in art history for reviews of exhibitions, critical essays, and editorials in art.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
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This database includes the recent full text of most major newspapers (including recent years of the New York Times) and many regional newspapers.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window
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Provides the full Dissertation Abstracts International file (1851–) online, plus full text for more than 700,000 dissertations, most from from 1997 to the present. These documents can overwhelm the reader in their length and depth, but the detailed discussion of a topic can be very helpful. Those not available directly by pdf may be available via ILL.
Project MUSE Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
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Covers 1906-. A collection of online journals in the humanities and social sciences. Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, and more. The Libraries do not have access to most Muse book content.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
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Offering scholarly journal and magazine articles, newspapers, and other types of publications, ProQuest Central brings together 30 of ProQuest's most highly used databases. Includes scholarly journal articles, newspapers and trade magazines, books, and books.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Covers: mostly 1990s- with some content back to the 19th century. A general research database that includes both popular magazines and scholarly journals. Offers academic and trade journals, popular magazines as well as some books, reports, and websites. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for some journals.