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Art and Design library resources

Need help? Book an appointment with Helen Rayner, your subject librarian.

Helen is currently working in the library most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and remotely.

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Databases

We hold a selection of databases which contain full text and abstracts of e-journals. A full list of all our databases can be found on the Databases A-Z page. Key databases relevant for Art and Design are listed below.

Databases for Art and Design 

  • Art, Design & Architecture: the key online resource for art and design. Includes access to hundreds of journals. Select Full Text under the search box, and for the most academic articles, select Peer-Reviewed.
  • Art Full Text: the key online resource for fine art. This database is also searchable directly from the Library’s Search box. Includes access to more than 300 journals.
  • Architecture Library (Bloomsbury): includes over 200 books focusing on studio design, technical detail, and professional practice.
  • Art & Architecture Archive Collection 1:  full text archive of 27 magazines in the fields of art and architecture from late 1800s to early 2000s. 
  • Artforum Archive: full archive of Artforum International journal.
  • Applied Visual Arts(Bloomsbury): offers access to over 170 illustrated art and design ebooks.
  • Berg Fashion Library (Bloomsbury): includes the Berg Encyclopedia of World Fashion and Dress; around 60 e-books; a colour image bank; plus articles and book chapters. Also includes the Fashion Photography Archive.
  • Fashion Business Cases (Bloomsbury): presents real-world fashion business cases, and tackles important issues such as sustainability, technology, and ethics. 
  • Box of Broadcasts (BoB): an on-demand TV and radio service for education. This service allows students and staff to view, record, create clips and share broadcast programmes from over 60 TV and radio channels. 
  • Bridgeman Education: a database of art images.
  • Business Source Ultimate: articles on companies, brands and products. Also includes company reports and market research.
  • CIS - Construction Information Service: key technical information for construction projects. It includes fundamental industry information and legislation from over 400 national organisations including the British Standards Institute, the Chartered Institute of Building and the Institution of Structural Engineers as well as more general architecture ebooks.
  • Cite Them Right Online: all the guidance you need to reference resources in your academic work.
  • Design Library (Bloomsbury): comprehensive global coverage of the history, theory and practice of crafts and design, including over 4,000 object images from worldwide design museums.
  • Digimap: an online map and data delivery service offering a number of data collections, including Ordnance Survey, historical, geological and spatial data. Staff and students will need to authenticate using your BSU log-in, and then register individually to accept the terms and conditions for all 13 collections we have access to.
  • Dress & Costume Library (Bloomsbury): comprehensive collection for the study of dress and costume history, design and making.
  • Euromonitor: articles, company profiles, market research reports and case studies of businesses. Watch the Euromonitor Passport help videos to get started using the database. We recommend using the Google Chrome browser to access Euromonitor.
  • Fashion Business Cases: helps to develop business skills required by fashion industry professionals. It is global in focus and presents real-world cases on challenges facing the business of fashion, tackling important issues such as sustainability, technology, ethics, and leadership. 
  • Fashion Photography Archive (Bloomsbury): more than 775,000 high-quality runway, backstage, and street style images by one fashion photographer from 1980 - 2000. Also videos, articles, designer biographies and timeline.
  • Fashion Studies Online: fashion videos about designers, major fashion weeks (London, Paris, Milan, New York) and interviews with leading fashion personalities. 
  • Gale OneFile: News: an international newspaper database and a good source of exhibition reviews and articles about artists. Tutorial
  • Grove Art Online: art encyclopaedia.
  • Harpers Bazaar Archive: the full run of this US fashion magazine from 1867 to the current issue.
  • JSTOR: images from museums and galleries around the world, as well as journal articles from over 1,000 journals, on a wide range of subjects.
  • Kanopy: a collection of feature films, short films and documentaries, free to stream. You can save clips and link to presentations.
  • LinkedIn Learning: good quality video tutorials.
  • Oxford English Dictionary: the full version of this essential reference resource.
  • Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: primary sources and images.
  • Statista: a data platform with forecasts on over 400 industries. It also features many thousands of reports on a wide range of subject areas.
  • Videogaming - Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive: US and UK popular and trade magazines covering video games, film, music, broadcasting, theatre, together with film fan magazines and music press titles.
  • Vogue Archive: the full run of the US edition of the magazine from 1892 to the current issue.
Electronic journals

If you're looking for a particular e-journal title, use our Journals A-Z. Note that a single e-journal title may be held in several different e-journal collections (databases). Here is just a selection of relevant e-journals for Art and Design:

Print journals

We also subscribe to print journals, which you can locate via the Journals A-Z, including:

  • Aesthetica
  • Afterall
  • Apollo
  • Architectural Review
  • Art in America
  • Artforum
  • Art News
  • Art Papers
  • Art Review
  • Blueprint
  • British Journal of Photography
  • Cabinet
  • Collezioni
  • Detail
  • Domus
  • Drapers
  • Elephant
  • Embroidery
  • Eye
  • Idea
  • Mark
  • Mix
  • Modern Painters
  • Modernist
  • Novum
  • Port
  • Printmaking Today
  • Raw Vision
  • Selvedge
  • Surface Design
  • Studio Potter
  • Text
  • Uppercase
  • Varoom
  • View
  • Vogue
  • Zoom
Weblinks
  • Ads of the World: An advertising archive showing videos and photographs from campaigns from around the world.
  • Art UK: Images of artworks that are in public collections in the UK (over 3,200 public museums, art galleries, country houses, civic buildings and other institutions)
  • Artcyclopedia: Access to good-quality images of artworks from galleries and museums around the world. These can be used for study purposes.
  • Axisweb: Profiling and supporting contemporary artists of the UK.
  • Craft Directory: images and information from the Crafts Council, UK.
  • Creative Commons Search - access to services provided by Flickr, Fotopedia, Google Images, international museums and more.
  • Europeana Collections: Access to good-quality images of artworks from galleries and museums around the world. These can be used for study purposes.
  • Illustration Archive: Over a million illustrations from works of literature, philosophy, history and geography that are in the British Library’s collection. Mostly 18th and 19th
  • Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA): The gallery’s website, which includes some artists’ videos.
  • Inter-Library Loans: Found a really interesting article or book that we don’t have access to? Apply for a copy from a non Bath Spa Library here.
  • Know Your Place: digital historical mapping project 
  • Library Hub Discover (was Copac): Many university research library catalogues in one place – search for books or journals here.
  • Lux: British artists’ videos, and listings of relevant events.
  • RIBA: Royal Institute of British Architects
  • SCONUL Access: A scheme which allows many university library users to borrow or use books and journals at other libraries which belong to the scheme; it covers most of the university libraries in the UK and Ireland.
  • Tate Gallery Collections
    Search the entire Tate Gallery Collections.
  • Victoria & Albert Museum: Thousands of images from the gallery's collections.
  • VADS: Visual Arts Data Service which provides access to good-quality images of artworks from galleries and museums around the world. These can be used for study purposes.
  • Wellcome Collection: Artworks and photographs from the library at the Wellcome Institute, reflecting its interest in health and medicine.
Bath Spa Library YouTube for video tutorials on how to use Library resources.