Article Databases
To find articles, begin your research in the databases and indexes listed below.
First Nations and Indigenous Art, Culture, History
- Indigenous peoples North America This link opens in a new windowIncludes manuscript material, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, and images of artwork drawn from a variety of repositories in the United States and Canada.
- iPortal : Indigenous Studies Portal This link opens in a new windowThe Indigenous Studies Portal (iPortal) has over 25,000 records describing electronic resources: books, articles, theses, documents, photos, archival resources, and maps relevant to Indigenous studies and communities.
- Informit Indigenous Collection This link opens in a new windowCollection includes journals, reports and monographs from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and the Pacific.
- National Gallery of Canada (NGC): Inuit Artists' Print DatabaseAn online version of The Inuit Artists Print Workbook (Sandra B. Barz, ed.), containing 8000 prints by Canadian Inuit artists from 1957 to the present.
- Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America This link opens in a new windowCovers the history & culture of Native North Americans including archaeology, multicultural relations, gaming, governance, legend, & literacy. Includes books, essays, journal articles, and government documents.
- Early Encounters in North America This link opens in a new windowDocuments the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850.
- America History and Life This link opens in a new windowThe definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada from pre-contact times to the present.
- Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters This link opens in a new windowDigitized primary source materials documenting the relationships and interactions between European settlers and indigenous peoples. Includes material from repositories in N. America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
General Art, Archaeology, Anthropology
- Art Full Text This link opens in a new windowIndexes Art, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning journals. Reproductions of works of art appearing in periodicals are also indexed.
- Art Index Retrospective: 1929-1984 This link opens in a new windowProvides high-quality indexing of nearly 600 publications - many of which are peer-reviewed - and citations of over 25,000 book reviews. Coverage includes fine, decorative and commercial arts.
- Artists in Canada This link opens in a new windowUnion list of Canadian artists, giving biographical information and location of files of over 42,000 Canadian artists in 23 libraries and galleries across Canada.
- Artists of the World This link opens in a new windowArtists of the World contains authoritative, up-to-date biographical information on more than 1.2 million artists and entries on groups of visual artists from all over the world and from all eras. Entries with detailed articles are supplemented by lists of works, literature, sources, and exhibitions.
- ARTbibliographies Modern This link opens in a new windowProvides full abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art
- Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts (AATA Online) This link opens in a new windowCovers restoration and preservation of artworks, material culture and archaeology
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new windowThis key anthropology database is a comprehensive index of the literature in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, museum studies, and related interdisciplinary research.
- National Gallery of Canada (NGC): Art DatabasesIdentifies collections and resources in the Gallery's art holdings and its Library and Archives. Some collections are searchable online.
- NGC: Index to Art in Canada to 1930Online index of works of art listed in Canadian exhibition, auction, and collection catalogues from 1823 (date of the earliest catalogue identified) up to 1930.
- HéritageOnline access to significant archival collections held by Library and Archives Canada, encompassing roughly 40 million pages of primary-source documents from the 1600s to the mid-1900s. Scope includes arts and literature, Indigenous history, politics, labour, social justice, and women's history.
- Getty Research PortalThrough this multilingual, multicultural union catalog, scholars can search and download complete digital copies of publications for the study of art, architecture, material culture, and related fields.
Canadian Newspaper Databases
Looking for newspaper articles? See the:
- Newspapers section of the First Nations and Indigenous Studies guide
- Multidisciplinary Canadian Databases section of the Canadian Art research guide
A few additional resources can be found below.
- British Columbia Newspaper Index This link opens in a new windowSelective index of The Province, Vancouver Sun and Times-Colonist; 1991-2007. From the BC Legislative Library.
- BC Historical NewspapersThe BC Historical Newspapers project features digitized versions of historical papers from around the province. The titles range from the Abbotsford Post to the Ymir Miner and date from 1865 to 1994.
- Canadian Newsstream This link opens in a new windowCanadian Newsstream offers the full text of almost 400 Canadian newspapers from Canada's leading publishers, including The Globe and Mail, National Post and the Vancouver Sun.
- Alternative Press Index (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowAlternative Press Index (API) is a bibliographic database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from over 300 international alternative, radical, and left periodicals
Select Multidisciplinary Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database providing indexing and abstracts for thousands of journals and other publications.
- JSTOR Collection This link opens in a new windowIn addition to fully-searchable journal backfiles, also includes current issues for some titles as well as collections of primary-source documents.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new windowOnline access to a comprehensive selection of important journals and ebooks in the humanities and social sciences.
Need Help?
For help finding articles:
- Look at the Articles / Journals section of this research guide.
- See UBC Library's Finding Journal Articles guide.
- Contact the Art & Visual Literacy Librarian.
- Visit the Music, Art & Architecture Library's Information Desk.
- Visit X̱wi7x̱wa Library.