Art and Design library resources

Your Subject Librarian

Helen Rayner

Working hours: 9-5, Monday-Friday

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

a-n The Artists Information Service: news, features, toolkits, case studies, practical guides and advice for arts professionals.
Applied Visual Arts(Bloomsbury): offers access to over 170 illustrated art and design ebooks.
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.
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.
Artforum Archive: full archive of Artforum International journal.
Art Markets: a guide to art galleries, auction houses, art fairs and agents
Arts Professional: news and information service for art sector professionals.
Art, Race & Gender: supports research and scholarship in the areas of art, art history, women’s and gender studies, and visual culture.
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.
Business of Fashion: provides intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion and beauty industries.
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.
The Fashion Law: offers news and analysis of legal issues relating to the fashion industry.
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
Game Development and Animation Collection (Packt): includes software-focused and hands-on content for students of video game design and digital animation, from Packt Publishing.
Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960-2020: the encyclopedia covers the work of women architects from over 135 countries, and their often-overlooked contributions across different times and geographies.
GreenFILE: covers all aspects of human impact on the environment
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.
Pop Culture Universe: primary sources, articles, videos, ebooks and images relating to US popular culture from the 1900s - 2010s.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: primary sources and images.
SportBusiness new stories and analysis giving a global view of business strategies and sponsorship deals across a range of sporting businesses and brands.
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.
WGSN: WGSN Fashion and Insight provides forecasting, market intelligence and trend analysis for style, fashion and design, popular in industry.
Womens Wear Daily: one of the fashion industry's most influential reads, from its launch in 1910 (6 month delay).
The Youth & Popular Culture Magazine archive: holds backfiles of 13 magazines from the UK, US and Canada with coverage spanning 1940 to the 2000s.

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:

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

Ads of the World: An advertising archive showing videos and photographs from campaigns from around the world.
ArchINFORM: database of international architecture.
Architecture and Design Scotland: advice, resources, and shared learning.
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.
BANES (Bath and North East Somerset) Planning: local council planning pages.
BAPLA: photographic image sources such as picture libraries and agencies.
Barbour Product Source: building materials directory.
Building Types Online: some free content but most of this database of buildings around the world is behind a paywall.
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.
Designing Libraries: a resource for the planning and design of libraries.
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 18^th and 19^th
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA): The gallery’s website, which includes some artists’ videos.
JAR - Journal for Artistic Research: international open access and peer-reviewed journal for artistic research from all disciplines.
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.
Magic Map : interactive mapping from UK Government data.
Material Lab: materials information and design resource.
MaterialDistrict: materials information, useful for designers.
NBS Source: building materials directory.
OpenStreetMap: open access map data.
Piaggi Collection of hats: digital database of Anna Piaggi hats.
RIBA: Royal Institute of British Architects.
Tate Gallery Collections
Search the entire Tate Gallery Collections.
Thomasnet.com: product directory but USA suppliers only.
Timber Development UK: information about businesses involved in timber supply, design, build, and sustainability.
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.

Inter-Library Loans: for an article or book that we don’t have access to, apply for a copy from a non Bath Spa Library here.

DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books for free, open access online books.

Open Textbooks Library for free open access textbooks in most subjects

DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals for free, open access online journals.

OpenDOAR for research repository content at universities (JISC).

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.