Art & Art History: Databases
Databases
Below is a list of art-related databases. They can be accessed from the Libraries homepage, under the 'Databases' tab.
Note: After clicking on a database link, you will be prompted to sign into your MyLSU account. This will occur whether or not you are on campus. Once you are logged in, you should be able to search the database. If you have any problems, please let me know.
Important: Trial databases are available for a limited time. If you are using them for an assignment, please be sure to save all the information you need. For more information, go to https://guides.lib.lsu.edu/az.php.
Art & Design Librarian

Marty Miller
She/her/hers
Art, Design, Architecture, & Landscape Architecture Databases
- Art & Architecture Complete This link opens in a new window Featuring full-text articles, indexing and abstracts from an array of publications, this database is a robust resource for art students and art historians. Covers a variety of topics from fine, decorative and commercial art to photography, folk art, film and architecture.
- Art Index Retrospective: 1929 - 1984 (H. W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window This archival database offers historical literature on a variety of art topics from the years 1929-1984. It provides users access to over half a century of art literature covering fine, decorative, and commercial art. Content includes high-quality indexing of nearly 600 publications, many of which are peer-reviewed, and citations of over 25,000 book reviews.
- Berg Fashion Library This link opens in a new window The Berg Fashion Library is a unique online portal which offers fully cross-searchable access to an expanding range of Berg content collections including the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, images, and much more.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.
- Filmakers Library Online This link opens in a new window Filmakers Library Online provides award-winning documentaries with relevance across the curriculumrace and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. It presents points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions world-wide.
- Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines This link opens in a new window llustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines: Important and Rare Periodicals from Confederate, Union, Abolitionist, and British Presses is the definitive online Civil War media resource. The database contains 65,000 pages drawn from 49 periodicals, including 15 campaign newspapers, most of them illustrated3,720 issues published from 1860 to 1865.
- Index of Medieval Art This link opens in a new window A thematic and iconographic index of early Christian and Medieval art objects. Besides iconographic descriptions of works of art, the database includes bibliographic records, and information such as style, school, location, and more.
- International Bibliography of Art (IBA) This link opens in a new window International Bibliography of Art (IBA) is the successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and covers the time period from 2008 - present. For the years, 1975-2007, see BHA. Authoritative coverage of international scholarship is provided for European art from late antiquity to the present, American art from the colonial era to the present, and global art since 1945. Visual arts in all media are also covered: painting, sculpture, drawing, video, installations, new media, decorative and applied arts, museum studies and conservation, archaeology, folk art and material culture, classical studies, antiques, architectural history.
- Iter Bibliography This link opens in a new window Iter's bibliography includes art, art history, foreign languages and literatures, and literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). Citations for books, journal material (articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies) are included, as are citations for dissertation abstracts, and essays in books (including entries in conference proceedings, festschriften, encyclopedias and exhibition catalogues).
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window Kanopy offers one of the most unique and compelling collections of film on the planet. Our films range from documentaries, indie and foreign films, must-see classics and blockbuster movies. Our sophisticated discovery engine encourages our users to challenge themselves to watch films outside of their comfort area.
- Textile Technology Complete This link opens in a new window Textile Technology Complete contains indexing and abstracting for more than 490 periodical titles, and for over 882,000 records drawn from sources such as books, conferences, theses, technical reports and trade literature. Coverage spans the domestic and international arenas and includes publications covering the major resources from the scientific community, as well as the apparel, home furnishings, flooring, and polymer industries.
- Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels This link opens in a new window Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels is the first ever scholarly, primary-source database focused on adult comic books and graphic novels. Here are the works of artists both celebrated and overlooked, alongside interviews, criticism, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this artform.
- Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names.
New/Temporary/Trial Databases
- Arcadian Library Online This link opens in a new window The award-winning Arcadian Library Online enables easy exploration of the rich holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East across the course of a millennium. Images are displayed in high resolution, full colour and include bindings, clasps and page edges. Choose between an English or Arabic interface and search in either language.
- Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography (Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America from Its Discovery to the Present Time), this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. With over 6 million pages from 29,000 works, this collection is a cornerstone in the study of the western hemisphere.
Additional Databases with Art and Humanities Content
- America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window This resource covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With hundreds of full-text journals and books, and selective indexing for journals dating back nearly 60 years, this database is a key reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history.
- Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window This is the online version of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS), referencing principally western-language articles and book chapters on all parts of Asia published since 1971.
- British Periodicals I and II This link opens in a new window This database provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. While this resource is convenient, researchers should know that Google indexes as much scholarly content as possible, so it can sometimes return results from predatory journals. Click here for information on how to identify a predatory journal.
- History Reference Source This link opens in a new window History Reference Source offers full text from more than 1,620 reference books, encyclopedias and non-fiction books, cover to cover full text for more than 150 leading history periodicals, nearly 57,000 historical documents, more than 78,000 biographies of historical figures, more than 113,000 historical photos and maps, and more than 80 hours of historical video.
- Humanities and Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 offers a broad range of subject coverage in the humanities and social sciences with high-quality indexing of more than 1,300,000 articles in nearly 1,100 periodicals, dating as far back as 1907, as well as citations of over 240,000 book reviews.
- Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window This HeinOnline collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Our cases go into the 20th century, because long after slavery was ended, there were still court cases based on issues emanating from slavery. To give one example, as late as 1901 Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had to decide if a man, both of whose parents had been slaves, could be the legitimate heir of his father, because under southern law, slaves could never be legally married. The library has hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slaverydefending it, attacking it or simply analyzing it. We have gathered every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920, which includes many essays and articles in obscure, hard-to-find journals in the United States and elsewhere. We have provided more than a thousand pamphlets and books on slavery from the 19th century. We provide word searchable access to all Congressional debates from the Continental Congress to 1880. We have also included many modern histories of slavery. Within this library is a section containing all modern law review articles on the subject. This library will continue to grow, not only from new scholarship but also from historical material that we continue to locate and add to the collection.
- WorldCat This link opens in a new window Offers Records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century.