Researching Designers Online@SU.LIB
Wendell Castle Seeds of Destiny 1995
The following resources have been selected to help students in the fields of interior and environmental design locate materials on designers and architects. They will provide information in the form of books, videos and periodical articles for various types of research projects such as term papers or design assignments.
BOOKS & VIDEOS:
Books and Videos at Syracuse University: SUMMIT
To locate books or videos on a specific designer or architect that are available in the Syracuse University Library you must use SUMMIT, the online catalog. To search for a particular designer, firm or architect, the most efficient approach will be to select a Subject Heading search and then type in the name of the designer, last name first. For example, if you are looking for information on Wendell Castle, simply type his name in reverse order [Castle Wendell ] in the box provided and click on the search button. You will get a Heading Screen indicating if there are any titles in the library on this subject. If there are titles on your topic, display the Title List, and then select relevant entries for full bibliographic information. To search for videos use the Apply Limits feature and select "Videorecording" under Medium.
Books at other Libraries: WorldCat
You may want to see if there are books on your designer that are not owned by Syracuse University but could be requested from the S. U. Library's Interlibrary Loan Department. A very useful database for locating this kind of information is WorldCat. This database contains 36 million records from libraries in North America and abroad. When you connect to the database, fill in the subject box of the Basic Search screen with the name of your designer. You will get a list of items relevant to your topic. You can use the online Interlibrary Loan Forms via ILLiad to request those items not owned by Syracuse University.
Books from Online Booksellers: Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, etc.
If you wish to purchase your own copies of books that you find listed on SUMMIT or WorldCat, there are several online bookstores that can provide these titles if they are in print.
Connect to Worldwide Books: (Exhibiton Catalog Source)
PERIODICAL ARTICLES:
The best sources for very current information on designers may be found in periodical and journal articles. Among the 400+ online databases subscribed to by Syracuse University there are five that are especially useful for researching information on designers. After you have retrieved useful citations, you will need to check if the journals are owned by Syracuse Univsersity Library. You can do this by connecting to SUMMIT and doing a search under Journal Title. Here you will find call numbers and locations for those journals in the S. U. Library collection. Remember that current issues of art magazines are located on the 2nd floor of Bird Library in the Current Periodicals area. They will be found on shelves arranged alphabetically by title. Note: current architecture magazines are located in the Architecture Reading Room, 102 Slocum Hall. Bound issues of art and architecture magazines will be shelved on the 4th floor of Bird Library by call number. For periodicals not owned by Syracuse University Library, you will need to request photocopies through the library's Interlibrary Loan Department. You may request these articles utilizing ILLiad.
Art Abstracts: (indexes over 290 art periodicals--covers September 1984 to the present)
Art Index Retrospective:(supplements Art Abstracts by covering the years 1929 to 1984)
Connect
to Art Index Retrospective:
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals:(Indexes over 1000 periodicals in the fields of architecture, interior design, preservation, and city planning--covers 1930s to the present)
Design and Applied Arts Index: (An international index to more than 450 design and craft journals--covers 1987 through the current past year)
Connect to Design and Applied Arts Index:
News Articles about Designers:
You can supplement the material you find in art, design, and architecture
periodicals by checking databases that provide current news stories (
from publications such as The New York Times) on designers. Two
of the most useful of these databases are listed below.
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe:(full-text articles from newspapers from around the world--covers last 10 years to the present)
Expanded Academic Index:(citations, abstracts and often full-text articles from popular publications--covers 1980 to the present)
WORLDWIDE WEB RESOURCES:
There are a number of sites on the Worldwide Web devoted to architecture
and design. Among these resources are web pages devoted to contemporary
designers and architects. These may be located by utilizing one of the
web search engines such as those listed below:
Yahoo:(among the earliest and most basic of Web search engines--organized by topics like a library)
Google:(A powerful and very fast search engine that places the most relevant findings at top of the list)
