Design and Media Databases
(School of Design and Media)

Gutman Library subscribes to online indexes to assist you in your research. These tools will help you find articles printed in magazines and journals published in architecture and design.  This page provides information on databases specifically for researching architecture, interiors and graphic, industrial, and e-design fields as well as the library catalog and other databases that may prove useful. You can connect to any of the databases directly from this page by clicking on the name of the database below. 

Design - Digital, E, Graphic and Industrial                         Instructional Design and Technology

School of Design and Media Database Information:

Design - Digital, E, Graphic and Industrial

Art Index - Art Index - The Art Index covers periodical articles from around the world including yearbooks and museum bulletins beginning in 1984. The Art Index covers a broad range of art topics including advertising art, antiques, archaeology, architecture & architectural history, art history, computers in art, crafts, decorative arts, fashion design, folk art, graphic arts, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, motion pictures, Non-Western art, painting, photography, pottery, sculpture, television, textiles, and video. The Art Index is updated monthly. Art Index is not full-text. To find the full-text of the articles in Art Index, search the library's catalog and/or JournalList  to help you locate the periodical. 

Design and Applied Arts Index - According the their introduction, DAAI is a "comprehensive international index to current design and design-related journals."  It includes research material as well as material based on current interest and provides citations to major articles, short articles, news, conference and seminar reports, book and video reviews, and illustrations. Design and Applied Arts Index coverage begins in 1971, however most articles date from 1987 forward. Subject coverage is expansive and includes industrial design, architecture, interior design, and graphic design. The Design and Applied Arts Index is updated semiannually. Design and Applied Arts Index is not full-text. To find the full-text of the articles in Design and Applied Arts Index, search the library's catalog and/or JournalList to help you located the periodical. 

Grove Dictionary of Art - The Grove Dictionary of Art is a good starting point for finding background information in the visual arts. Use it to find artist biographies, patrons (collectors and dealers), critics and theorists, civilizations and cultures, country surveys, towns and cities, styles and movements, major art forms, overviews of subject-matter and iconography , materials and techniques, conservation, as well as issues in art. The Grove Dictionary of Art contains articles on all aspects of the visual arts including painting, sculpture, graphic arts, architecture, decorative arts and photography and covers Western and non-Western art from Prehistory to the present day. The Grove Dictionary of Art is full-text. 

Material Connexion - Material ConneXion is a collection of over 1,400 materials and processes. The online materials database contains the latest and most exciting materials originating from a large spectrum of industries—typically unnoticed or difficult to reach by the design community. All the materials are juried into the database by a panel of material specialists and knowledgeable professionals.

WorldCat - WorldCat is one of the FirstSearch databases. WorldCat allows the user to search the holdings of libraries worldwide. Search this database as you would the Gutman Library Catalog or the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. Through WorldCat, you are able to place Interlibrary Loan requests.

XreferPlus - XreferPlus provides ten art and design dictionaries and encyclopedias and one architecture dictionary. The system has a robust search system, especially for the online dictionaries where it can be hard to find a term if you don't know the spelling. In that case use the XreferPlus tilde (~) to find variants on a root spelling of a word (e.g., ~psycologist will find psychologist). The eleven art and design dictionaries are: The Bloomsbury Guide to Art, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture, The Thames & Hudson Encyclopedia of Impressionism, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Design and Designers, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance, The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of British Art, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers, and A Biographical Dictionary of Artists, Andromeda.   

Instructional Design and Technology:

Academic Search Premier - Academic Search Premier provides fulltext for nearly 4,650 serials, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.

AskERIC - ERIC, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, produces the world's premier database of journal and non-journal education literature. ERIC provides a public Web site for searching nearly 1.2 million citations going back to 1966 and, with contributor permission, accessing more than 110,000 full-text materials at no charge.

ProQuest - ProQuest is a database provider that Gutman Library uses to offer access to multiple research databases, containing mostly full-text articles from magazines and scholarly journals.  Part of the ProQuest system is called ProQuest Research Library.  Within the Research Library database, there are several specialized Modules, including Humanities, General Interest, Social Sciences, Psychology, International, Multicultural, and Women's Issues.

Teacher Reference Center - Provides indexing and abstracts for over 280 of the most popular teacher and administrator trade journals to assist professional educators. It includes a number of educational technology journals. To access Teacher Reference Center, click on the link to Academic Search Premier above, then click on the "Choose Databases" tab. Scroll down the list of databases and click on the link to TRC.

Other Resources:

Instructional Technology Internet Resources - On this page you will find a wide variety of internet sources related to the field of instructional technology.

Library Catalog:  Browse the catalog for books, periodicals, and other library materials.  Not sure how to find a book or periodical?  See our guide.

Library Databases:  Some of the full-text databases cover art and architecture in addition to a broad range of subject areas.  Three good full-text options are ProQuest and Lexis-Nexis. For assistance using these databases, stop by or call the reference desk (215-951-2848) or try the HELP section of each database.

For further assistance with research in the architecture and design fields contact Michael J. Krasulski at krasulskim@philau.edu.