© University of Kent - Contact | Feedback | Legal | Cookies
The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T +44 (0)1227 764000
Finding journal articles
Databases help you find journal articles and other relevant material for your essays or research. Some services find data on specific disciplines or subject areas, others index only certain types of publications.
Databases usually give you the reference only, but many work with the 360 Link service to provide links to the full text where this is available at Kent.
Below is a selection of the most useful databases for Visual Arts.
Subject specific databases
| Database | Description |
|---|---|
| Art and Architecture Complete | Provides full-text coverage from many periodicals and books on art and architecture, plus a vast image collection |
| Art Index Retrospective (1929-1984) | Access to over 50 years of art literature covering a wide range of publications |
| Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals | Architecture and design, history of architecture, city planning 1934 onwards |
| Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) via the Getty Institute website | Art indexing database covering 1990-2007; searchable together with Répertoire de la litterature de l'art (RILA), which covers 1975-1989 |
| International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA) via the Getty Institute website | Art indexing database covering 1975-1989; searchable together with Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA), which covers 1990-2007 |
| British Architectural Library (from RIBA: Royal Institute of British Architects) | Covers over 300 architectural journals held in the RIBA Library, so in addition to searching for books it can be used to search for journal articles about architecture. Also available: RIBApix, a growing collection of images from the British Architectural Library at RIBA. |
| Construction Information Service (CIS) (from IHS Technical Indexes) | Construction related documents;includes:
|
| Princeton Index to Christian Art | Possibly the most comprehensive database of Christian iconography in the world, with direct access to many images |
General databases
| Database | Description |
|---|---|
| ERIC (Educational Resources Information Centre) | Large database of education material, with coverage from 1966 onwards |
| Google Scholar link to take advantage of automated links to subscribed services | Indexes academic articles, books, preprints, etc, from a wide range of sources and includes citation links. Note: not all items indexed are freely available in full text. |
| Historical Abstracts | Historical coverage of the world (except the US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. |
| IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences) | Index to social sciences literature with coverage 1951 onwards |
| International Medieval Bibliography | Index to journals on the European Middle Ages with coverage from 1980 onwards |
| Literature Compass | Full text review journal for all areas of English literature; includes searchable abstracts of subject related journals |
| Literature Online | Searchable library of over 350,000 works of English, American and Canadian literature, plus over 200 full-text journals |
| MLA (Modern Language Association) Bibliography | Important index to material in literature, language and linguistics |
| PsycINFO | Index to psychology literature 1881- |
| Religious and Theological abstracts | Index to articles on theology and religion 1957- |
| Web of Science (part of Web of Knowledge) | Citation indexes covering 1970s onwards, plus conference proceeding citation indexes covering 1990 onwards |
| Zetoc Online | Contents Page database from the British Library, indexing content from the early 1990s onward. 20,000 journal titles and 16,000 conference proceedings published each year. |
E-journal collections
E-journal collections provide large conglomerations of e-journals which you can keyword search to find full-text content on a topic. All e-journal collections
- EBSCOhost Databases: you can search several databases simultaneously by ticking their boxes. The following may be useful:
- Academic Search Complete: contains the full-text of ca 7,900 journals and indexes and abstracts the contents of ca 11,900 journals, and a total of more than 12,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage is in all disciplines but weighted towards humanities and social science.
- Art and Architecture Complete
- Art Index Retrospective 1929-1984
- Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
- E-Journals
- Historical Abstracts
- International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text
- PsycArticles
- PsychINFO
- Blackwell Synergy: includes full-text journals in the arts and humanities
- Caliber (University of California Press)
- Cambridge University Press: journals
- IngentaConnect: journals from a wide range of publishers
- JSTOR: a full text archive of over 500 journals, including core scholarly journals in History, Literature and Philosophy. More journals and subjects will be added. It covers material from the 1800s up to a moving wall of between 1-5 years before current publication
- Literature Online from Proquest
- 19th Century (Nineteenth Century) UK Periodicals: Series 1: New readerships. It is not possible to link directly to individual titles within this collection: it searches collectively
- Oxford University Press: journals
- Project Muse: contains the full text from over 300 journals from the John Hopkins University Press and other publishers, with journals to be added
- Swetswise (Swets Blackwell): contains over 9,000 journal titles from over 317 publishers (ca. 340 arts titles). It offers full-text access to journals (mainly ones we subscribe to) and tables of contents and abstracts of other journals. NB: This is useful mainly for searching for bibliographic records
- University of Chicago Press
FAQs: how do I use...
Databases
Indexing databases list what is available globally, and not all items may be available at Kent. If an item you want to see does not have a link to the full text, search for the item via the Library catalogue (choose 'Journal search') or the journals database.
If the item is not available at Kent, the document delivery service may be able to get it for you from another library.
360 Link
360 Link works only with journals. It provides a button which searches the Library's e-journals subscriptions and offers a link (or links) to the relevant journal if you have online access to it. If direct links to articles or issues are available, these are offered on the 360 Link options page.