ARH102 Art History: Renaissance Through Contemporary Art (Hall)

Scholarly articles are sometimes also called academic articles. These resources are high-level, published by experts in the field for experts in the field. They do not usually define key terms the way reference articles do. To understand your scholarly sources, you need that general reference information under your belt first.

• Scholarly resources are written by scholars. They come from experts in a field or topic
• They are high-level resources that often use professional jargon, or language specific to a discipline
• They may be original research (a primary source) or a critical evaluation of research published in their field (secondary source)
• They are most often published by university or academic publishers

Library databases

Scholarly articles are found --for free to GCC students--in the library databases. Library databases are organized collections of information from credible, academic sources. They contain articles from scholarly journals, reference books, magazines, research in the arts and sciences, full-text books, book chapters, book reviews, and more. The source of the information is clearly identified as well as the date of publication.

The GCC Library subscribes to over 70 different databases and organizes them by subject. You can find the databases dedicated to art by clicking on Arts and Humanities Database at the GCC Library 

Additionally, the library provides access to general academic databases which cover multiple subjects. You might try Academic Source Complete. Here is a video made by librarian, Renee Smith, showing how to search this database and offering useful search tips.  

But I most recommend using ONE SEARCH. Scroll down to search several databases at once.

One Search  Instead of searching individual databases, you can search several at once by using the search box below. Each tab searches for different types of information. For an eBook, you click on the Find Books tab and select the radio button beneath the search box for eBooks. For a scholarly article, click on the Find Articles tab and select the radio button for scholarly.  You can search all types by using the default One Search tab. 

Search terms Try a variety of different search terms. The name of your art piece might not bring back any results. Try using terms related to your art object. Or try searching for the type of art piece it is, the medium in which it was made, the region from which it comes. Use the Object Details associated with your art object to brainstorm search terms.

Type directly into the box below mixing and matching search terms to see what you get. Once you see your results, you can limit them by using the discipline, subject, and date limiters on the left side of the screen.   Don't use too many terms at once! Don't use full sentences!

Below are some example sources found by using One Search, then using different limiters.