RISD Museum Objects Research Guide

Use this RISD Museum Object Research Guide to locate information on objects in the museum collection. The guide also covers researching objects from other museums.

Limiting to English language articles in online databases

In Margot Nishimura's AH 102 Medieval Art History class yesterday there was a discussion about how to limit search results to articles in English in the online article databases.

Here are some tips:

In Art Full Text/ Art Retrospective there is a Language of Document field in the drop-down menu on the front search screen. The default for the menu is "smart search".
Also in AFT/Art Retro's html full text documents is the option to translate the article to (French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, or Dutch) or to listen to an audio file of the article.

In Art Bibliographies Modern, BHA, DAAI, and DAR, the initial search screen has a check box to select, Limited to: English only.

In Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals there is a Language selection box on the Advanced Search screen.

In AFT/Art Retro, ABM, BHA, DAAI, DAR there is the option to choose the language of the search interface - a fairly new feature.

In JSTOR, Limit to English on the Advanced Search screen.

Political Websites

www.fivethirtyeight.com

www.pollster.com

www.realclearpolitics.com

http://firstread.msnbc.com

http://time-blog.com/swampland/

www.wonkette.com

www.politico.com

www.cnnpolitics.com

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

New Online source for Nature Lab assignments

Oxford Reference Online includes 175 Oxford titles many of which cover areas such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, ecology, natural history, plant sciences, physics, and zoology.
It includes timelines, maps and illustrations, quotations, encyclopedia and bi-lingual dictionaries.
Subjects & Books
Try it out for Nature Lab projects.
Start at library.risd.edu > Reference > Oxford Reference Online

RI water resources

How can I find information on RI water systems?

The RI Office of Water Resources offers historic and current reports on water quality, watershed management, fresh and coastal water ecology.

Browse RI Office of Water Resources by Topic

For articles on water-related topics (not specific to Rhode Island) search these databases through the RISD Library Articles page:
Academic Search Premier
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
Firstsearch > Search these databases: Basic Biosis, BioDigest, Geobase
Garden, Landscape, and Horticulture Index
GreenFile
JSTOR > Search by Discipline: ecology & evolutionary biology

RI natural habitats and species

Where can I find information on Rhode Island natural habitats, land use, plants, & animals? Do any of these sources contain maps?

Look in the RISD/Athenauem catalog under these subjects:

Birds - Rhode Island
Botany - Rhode Island
Land Use - Rhode Island
Marine Ecology - Rhode Island (includes maps)
Natural History - Rhode Island
Open Spaces - Rhode Island

Try searching the catalog with keywords such as plants, mammals, fish*, birds, ecolog*, natur* + "Rhode Island". Using the asterisk * at the end of a keyword will give more results by finding variants of the root word.
ecolog* = ecology, ecologies, and ecological

Search the Providence Public Library for additional sources.

Check out this State website for statistics and maps:
RI Department of Environmental Management
Use the site's drop down menus to locate more specific topics

Peer review articles

How do I find peer-review, scholarly or academic journal articles?

Start at library.risd.edu > RISD Online Resources
Search the following databases & select the option to LIMIT to Scholarly articles:
Academic Search Premier - Choose Academic Journals tab
Art Full Text/Art Retrospective - Check Peer Reviewed box

Search these four databases simultaneously and select the
Peer Reviewed Journals tab in the Results Screen:
Art Bibliographies Modern
Bibliography of the History of Art
Design & Applied Arts Index
Design & Applied Arts Retrospective

ERIC - Check Peer Reviewed box
Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text - Check Peer Reviewed box
Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index - Check Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals box

FirstSearch databases:
ECO(OCLC collection of scholarly journals) Simply search ECO - All articles indexed are scholarly
PsychFirst - select Reviewed Journal Phrase > Peer-Reviewed Journal
WilsonSelectPlus - select Reviewed Journal Phrase > Peer-Reviewed Journal & check the Subscriptions held by my library box

JSTOR & Project Muse are full text scholarly journal archives in which all articles have undergone the peer review process.

Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts - check Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals box

Reader's Guide Index - Limit to: Peer Reviewed

Site plans, elevations, sections & drawings

How do I find site plans, elevations, diagrams, and drawings of a building project?

Start at library.risd.edu
Select RISD Online Resources
Choose Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals

The Avery Index has a search box which allows you to select and search for the type of Illustration you need. The drop down menu includes the following types of images:
Aerial images
Charts
Computer generated images
Details
Diagrams
Drawings
Elevations
Engravings
Graphs
Illustrations
Maps
Models
Photographs
Plans
Plates
Sections
Site Plans
Sketches
Tables
Views

To search for more than one type of image at a time, hold down the shift key while clicking on the Illustration type.
Once the search is complete, choose Check Your Library Holdings for Availability to see if RISD Library owns the journal.
RISD periodicals don't circulate so use the face-up scanner to scan articles and images. Save scans as color or greyscale jpg, tiff, or pdfs. Save to a flash drive or email the scans to yourself.

Plant Explorers

Looking for information on Plant Explorers? 
Try these books and periodicals databases.

RISD Reference Books:

The Oxford companion to the garden  - SB450.95 .O94 2006.

Landscape architecture  - SB470.5 .M37 1993.

Pioneers of American landscape design  - SB469.9 .P56 2000.

Encyclopedia of gardens - SB450.95 .E52 2001.

Dictionary of gardening - SB450.95 .D53 1992.

Reference resources online:

Grove Art Online, Encyclopedia Britannica Online, & Marquis Whos Who on the Web

The Athenaeum has books on many plant explorers. RISD students & faculty can check out 5 Athenaeum books at a time.

Periodicals databases:

Academic Search Premier, Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals,

Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index, JSTOR, Project Muse, &

Readers' Guide Index

Articles about Fleet Library at RISD

Where can I find articles about the new library?

Here is a list of recent articles and where to access them:

"AIA/ALA Library Building Awards." American Libraries 38.4 (Apr. 2007): 49-53. Full text available in Academic Search Premier.

Amaki, Amelia. "By the Book." ID: Magazine of International
Design 53.8 (Dec. 2006): 22.
Bound Periodicals, "I". First Floor.

Johnson, Matthew H. "Reconsidering Value Engineering: The Rhode
Island School of Design Library Project." Civil Engineering 77.2
(Feb. 2007): 36-85. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO.
Full Text, color pdf available in Academic Search Premier.

Mays, Vernon. "Office dA." Architect 96.7 (June 2007): 70-77.
Bound Periodicals, "A". First Floor.

"Nine Libraries Named for AIA/ALA Building Awards." Architect 96.5 (May 2007): 24.
Bound Periodicals, "A". First Floor..

Pearson, Clifford A. "Office dA Inserts a New Sensibility within a Historic Shell to Create the Fleet Library at RISD." Architectural Record 195.6 (June 2007): 200-203.
Bound Periodicals, "A". First Floor.

Terry, Carol. “From grand banking hall to the art and design school library of the 21st century.” Art Libraries Journal 32.4 (2007): 11-16.

Van Breukelen, Bonnie. "First-Class Honours." Frame 55 (Mar/Apr 2007): 72-9.

Webb, Michael. "Office Building." Surface 68 (Nov 2007): 149-152.
Bound Periodicals, "S". First Floor.

Weeks, Katie. "Fancy Fleet." Contract 49.2 (Feb. 2007): 54-9.
Art Full Text. H. W. Wilson.
Full Text, color pdf available in Art Full Text.

Rotterdam Bridge

I am working on a project for a class, and I need to find out more about the Rotterdam Bridge Competition.

It was difficult to find any information about this competition, but there was information about Rotterdam's bridges.

A search in Art Full Text / Art Retrospective, using the keywords "Rotterdam" and "Bridge" yielded several results.

FirstSearch also had some results.

In addition, there is some information about Rotterdam architecture that can be found in the library.

RISD Museum Object Information

How do I find information on works of art owned by the RISD Museum?

Begin by looking in the Handbook of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design located in the Reference section. The Museum owns over 84,000 objects; this handbook highlights only 290 of them.

RISD Museum exhibition catalogues are often thematic and feature objects from the RISD Museum's collection alongside works from other museum & private collections. Follow this link to an alphabetical list of all RISD Museum publications owned by the library. These exhibitions catalogues are another source for information on museum objects. Some of the exhibition catalogues contain indexes to the title of the artwork, artist's name, and RISD Museum registration number.

RISD Museum Object Registration System
The Museum's registrar assigns each work of art a unique series of numbers. Registration numbers look like this: 30.166. The first number corresponds to the year the work was acquired by the museum. The numbers following the decimal point refer to the work's order of accession within that year. Knowing the museum registration number of your object can help in locating it in an exhibition catalogue. Ask a librarian at the Reference Desk to access our searchable database of RISD objects in RISD Museum Exhibition Catalogs.

Eva Peron

A student was thinking of researching Eva Peron for her final project. Her biography can be found at the Athenaeum: The Woman With the Whip: Eva Peron by Maria Flores. Articles can be found using Academic Search Premier.

Anna Jarvis, founder of Mother's Day

A student is interested in information about Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day, for her artist's book. The RISD Library has the book Consumer Rites: The Buying & Selling of American Holidays by Leigh Eric Schmidt. The Brown Library has Mother's day, ... official program by Anna Jarvis herself, and Encyclopedia Britannica Online has an article about her and how the holiday began. WorldCat (FirstSearch) turned up several sources about Anna Jarvis as well, by using "Jarvis, Anna" in the subject line.

History of Industrial Design Patent Search

History of ID students have been given an object to research. Some students are coming in with the patent number of the object. The primary source for patent information is the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Also, try searching Google Patents. The USPTO site covers 1790-present. Patents issued within the past few days are included. Google Patents does not include patents issued within the past 6 months.
A great print source for the history of designed objects is the 3-volume reference set, Phaidon Design Classics.

For more information, view this tutorial on how to search the US Patent & Trademark website.

Tip: Print Preview patent drawings-many of the image files are too large to fit on a single page.