Arts and Humanities Research Guide
This is a listing of databases of particular relevance for research and study in the Department of Arts and Humanities; the databases correlate with the programs and disciplines within the department. Many of these databases cover the periodical literature in their respective fields, but some also provide citations and abstracts for books, book chapters, papers, reports, dissertations, and curriculum materials, as well as statistical and directory information, and some are full-text resources and collections of non-print materials of various kinds. Virtually all of the periodical indexes listed below are enabled to provide linkage to full text e-journal articles when available.
There are several key databases that are critical for searching the literature in essentially all subject fields at the College; these include ERIC, Education Full Text, PsycINFO, ProQuest, Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and Digital Dissertations. These resources are not separately included below, but they are essential for serious study in many or most of the programs in Arts and Humanities.
This guide lists selected e-resources within the following categories:
Periodical Indexes
E-Collections (Text, Images, Sound)
**********************************************************
Academic Search Premier – A multidisciplinary database providing full text for more than 4,600 journals, including nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals. See also Academic Search Complete, a scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887.
America: History and Life – Index (with some abstracts) of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present.
Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) – Listings of articles, books, reviews, etc., on British, American, and Commonwealth literature; selective full-text.
Art Full Text – Indexes and abstracts art periodical literature from 1984 -; full-text from 1997 – .
Art Retrospective – Index to periodical literature in art published from 1929 to 1984.
ARTbibliographies Modern – Citations and abstracts for publications on modern and contemporary art (20th-21st centuries).
ATLA Religion Databases with ATLASerials – Religion and theology material from 1949- (indexing from the 19th century).
BHI: British Humanities Index – indexes over 320 international humanities journals and weekly magazines published in the UK and other English speaking countries, as well as quality newspapers published in the UK. Topics include architecture, archaeology, art, antiques, education, economics, foreign affairs, environment, cinema, current affairs, gender studies, history, language, law, linguistics, literature, music, painting, philosophy, poetry, political science, religion, and theatre.
Bibliography of the History of Art – Citations and abstracts for articles in Western art history periodicals and other publications.
Education Research Complete – Provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2,100 journals, as well as full text for more than 1,200 journals, and includes full text for nearly 500 books and monographs.
Essay & General Literature Index – Indexes essays and articles contained in collections of essays and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada; areas covered include the humanities and social sciences, with subject coverage ranging from economics, political science, and history to criticism of literary works, drama, and film.
Historical Abstracts – Provides citations and abstracts for publications related to world history, excluding the U.S. and Canada, from 1450 to the present.
Humanities and Social Sciences Retro – Provides coverage of journal articles in the humanities and social sciences from 1907 through 1984.
Humanities Full Text – Abstracts, bibliographic indexing, and full text from scholarly sources and specialized magazines in the humanities. Indexing begins in 1984, full-text coverage in 1995.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences – A valuable online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research, IBSS includes over two million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951, providing broad coverage of international material and incorporating over 100 languages and countries.
International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) – Music journal resource with almost 800,000 indexed articles, plus detailed abstracts and full text from 1874 to the present, covering the scholarly to the popular.
International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) – Draws its content from more than 210 international periodicals and also indexes articles and obituaries appearing in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts – Abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics; coverage from 1973 to present.
MLA International Bibliography – Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Provides access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies.
Music Index - A comprehensive guide to music periodicals and literature, featuring digitized content from 1970 to present, this database contains cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts of articles about music, musicians, and the music industry for more than 475 periodicals, as well as book reviews, obituaries, news, and selective coverage for more than 230 periodicals.
Periodicals Archive Online – Archive of hundreds of digitized journals published in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
Philosopher’s Index – Index with abstracts for journal articles, books, contributions to anthologies, and book reviews, covering the major fields of philosophy, including aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of related fields such as education, history, law and religion.
Professional Development Collection – Designed for professional educators, this database provides a highly specialized collection of nearly 520 high-quality education journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed titles. The database also contains more than 200 educational reports.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature – A comprehensive music bibliography featuring citations, abstracts, and indexes. There are currently over 540,000 records in RILM on traditional music, popular music, and classical music, representing disciplines that include musicology, ethnomusicology, pedagogy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and others.
RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals – an international annotated database with detailed content analysis of writings on musical history and culture between 1800 and 1950 provided by internationally-recognized scholars and editors. RIPM currently indexes the contents of 120 music periodicals including articles, reviews, illustrations, music examples, advertisements, press reviews, and more.
Scopus – Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
Social Sciences Full Text – Provides coverage of English-language journals across social science disciplines, with indexing from 1983, abstracting from 1984, and select access to full text from 1984 to the present.
Web of Science - Comprising the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Science Citation Index Expanded, this database supports searching by topic, author, or publication name, and is also a major means for doing cited reference searching, to find articles that cite a person’s work.
Dictionary of Literary Biography – Biographical essays on authors from America, Britain, and selected other countries.
Encyclopedia of Education (2nd Edition) – The 2003 version of the classic resource in education and related fields.
Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd Edition) – This electronic version of the 2008 edition of the Encyclopedia offers new developments, including two new volumes of research and scholarly content, in the field of language teaching and learning in the age of globalization.
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2nd Edition) – The 2004 edition of the Encyclopedia encompasses the full range of topics in linguistics, including such areas as historical, comparative, formal, mathematical, functional, philosophical, and sociolinguistics. Special attention is given to interrelations within these branches of the field and to relations of linguistics with other disciplines.
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences – This key reference work comprises 4,000 articles, commissioned by 52 Section Editors, and includes 90,000 bibliographic references as well as comprehensive name and subject indexes.
Oxford Art Online (formerly Grove Art Online) – Searchable database of biographies, bibliographies, and image resources from Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
Oxford Music Online (formerly Grove Music Online) – Provides access to multiple Oxford music reference resources, including the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Grove Music Online, The Oxford Companion to Music, and The Oxford Dictionary of Music.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online – Over 2,000 continually updated and revised articles on philosophy and related disciplines.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – A freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy, maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, representing over 65 academic institutions worldwide; articles are thorough and scholarly and include extensive bibliographies and links to other Internet resources.
Twayne’s Authors Series – Provides critical introductions to the lives and works of nearly 600 writers, to the history and influence of literary movements, and to the development of literary genres. Each author selected for coverage is selected for appropriateness for the high school and college curriculum.
E-Collections (Text, Images, Sound)
Alexander Street Press Databases – Themed collections of print documents, video, and recorded sound across disciplines; notable databases include Alexander Street Literature (cross-searchable collections covering the literatures of place, race, and gender), American Film Scripts Online (a searchable full-text database of screenplays and shooting scripts), Dance in Video (streaming video files of dance productions and documentaries by influential performers and companies of the 20th century), North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (personal views of what it meant to immigrate to the United States and Canada between 1880 and 1950), Opera in Video (streaming video database containing important opera performances), Theatre in Video (containing performances of the world’s leading plays and film documentaries in streaming video), and many others.
American Memory – a gateway to the Library of Congress’s collections of digitized American historical materials. The site’s mission is to provide ” free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.”
ARTstor – Digital images of architecture, painting, photography, sculpture, decorative arts, design and material culture.
Classical Music Library – Includes recordings from major labels, independent labels, and self-published recordings from major musical groups; also includes program notes, composer biographies, and images cross-referenced to the recordings.
Classical Scores Library – Collection of digitized scores of important classical music, manuscripts, and unpublished material.
Database of Recorded American Music – A scholarly resource of streaming online music, primarily American, including CD-quality audio, liner notes, and essays from New World, Composers Recordings, and other important labels.
Ebrary – Online books across a range of subject areas; searchable, under All Subjects, by Fine Arts; History (General) and History of Europe; Language and Literature; Music and Books on Music; Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, etc., and various sub-topics, and by author, title, and other criteria.
Literature Online (LION) – Fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 260 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources.
Music Online : Classical Music Reference Library – Brings together reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music, in a unified database. Provides coverage of all classical genres, from the Medieval period to the 21st century.
National Council of Teachers of English Journals – Journals published by the NCTE with content reflecting current research, trends, and strategies, including Language Arts, English Journal, College English, and Research in the Teaching of English.
Naxos Music Library – Collection of audio music containing the Naxos, Marco Polo, and Da Capo catalogues; includes classical music, historical recordings, jazz, world and folk music, along with textual notes on the works being played and biographical information on composers or artists.
Primary Documents in American History – Provides access to digitized versions of collections housed at the Library of Congress, including many of the most important documents in American history.
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online – Database of English language letters, diaries, autobiographies, oral histories, and other personal narratives providing insight into history dating from the 1550s to the present.
Teachers College Art Collections – With over 1,000 digital images, this online resource represents the library’s entire collection of art. These images are a resource for both teaching and research, as well as a historical representation of the College’s dedication to art and art education.
Print Resources
Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education (2008)
Handbook of Research on New Literacies (2009)
Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy through the Communicative and Visual Arts (1997) (see also e-version below)
Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy through the Communicative and Visual Arts, Volume 2 (2008)
Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts, 2nd Edition (2003) (see also e-version below)
E-Resources
Blackwell Reference Online – Provides full-text access to reference works in the humanities, social sciences, and business and management, see research handbooks and companions in Art, Geography, History, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, and other subject areas.
Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning – The electronic version of the 2005 edition of a key resource for research in second language acquisition, TESOL, and related fields in applied linguistics.
Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts – This handbook brings together state-of-the-art research and practice on the evolving view of literacy as encompassing not only reading, writing, speaking, and listening, but also the multiple ways through which learners gain access to knowledge and skills.
Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts – Sponsored by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, this electronic version of the second (2003) edition of the printed source offers an overview of recent trends in the study and teaching of English.
Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) – Listings of articles, books, reviews, etc., on British, American, and Commonwealth literature; selective full-text.
Review of Educational Research – A publication of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the RER publishes quarterly critical, integrative reviews of research literature bearing on education, including conceptualizations, interpretations, and syntheses of scholarly work.
Review of Research in Education - A publication of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the RRE provides an annual overview and descriptive analysis of selected topics of relevant research literature through critical and synthesizing essays.
Mental Measurements Yearbook – Produced by the Buros Institute, this database contains extensive information about and reviews of English-language, commercially available, standardized tests covering educational skills, personality, vocational aptitude, psychology, and related areas, as included in the printed Mental Measurements Yearbooks.
This is a wonderful resource! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Marcelle. I really enjoyed putting it together, and I hope students and researchers find it useful.