What if BU does not have your article in print or online?
- Interlibrary LoanInterlibrary Loan services allow current BU faculty, staff, and students to request books, articles, book chapters, and other materials that our ILL staff will obtain from other libraries. Books generally take 2-4 weeks to arrive; articles are generally delivered electronically within 1-2 days.
- Public artIf a book is checked out, SIGN IN.
Click on Request from Libraries beyond BU for access to the ILL form.
Getting Started With Research in the BU Libraries
The BU Libraries Search allows you to search across our library catalog of books (ebooks & print), journals, databases and much more! You can search by keyword, author, subject, title and more. For the purposes of your project, you may find that a very specific search for your exhibit piece might be too narrow, and you won't find anything. In this case, you may need to expand your search. Think about the keywords you may have found consulting sources about your exhibit on the internet. These can help lead you to scholarly resources on your topic.
Tips:
- Search for the artist by name, together with 'exhibition' in order to find exhibit catalogs.
- Search for the artist by name and use the filters to look for reviews (example: Deana Lawson reviews)
- Search for broader themes related to the exhibit piece you are researching. For example:
Searching the BU Libraries:
.... art AND "social change" (books)
.... art AND "social change" (peer-reviewed journals, 2020 - 2023)
.... art and Society AND immigra* AND Boston (all results)
.... artists AND "social justice" AND United States (all results)
BU Libraries Search & Online Book Search
- eBook Central This link opens in a new window
eBook Central provides a wide variety of eBook titles from publishers across many disciplines.
- Google BooksAn alternative way to search; if BU Libraries does not have it, you can request it through Inter-Library Loan.
Articles in Journals, Magazines, Periodicals
- ARTbibliographies Modern This link opens in a new window
ARTbibiographies Modern (ABM) indexes and abstracts international journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary arts, including photography, dating from the late 19th century onwards.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar provides access to academic literature from many disciplines. The sources include articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions and come from diverse places including academic publishers, online repositories and other websites.
- Gale Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary database that includes scholarly journals in the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, business, literature, and other subjects.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Premier contains indexing, abstracts and full-text articles for scholarly publications, most of them peer-reviewed. The subjects covered include topics in the social sciences, humanities, general science, education and most areas of academic study.
- ProQuest News & Newspapers This link opens in a new window
ProQuest News & Newspapers allows searching across a wide range of ProQuest newspaper databases include ProQuest Historical Newspapers, International Newsstream, Canadian Major Dailies, Ethnic Newswatch, and the Boston Globe. These databases can also be searched separately.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
This database provides full text access to the back issues of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Book reviews are included as well as journal articles. Abstracts are available for some of the articles.
