Resource SPOTLIGHT

What are handbooks, companions and guides?

Handbooks, companions and guides are, in short, reference works. They tend to be narrowly focused around a single person, topic, or period.

What are they good for?

Art Theorists of the Italian Renaissance is a collection of treatises on art and architecture from the period 1470 to 1775, and is structured around Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists.   Emory’s Woodruff library has owned the CD-ROM since 1998, but those in the Emory Community now have online access at http://libcat1.cc.emory.edu:32888/DB=artheoir

The collection of over 90 treatises, from Alberti to Vignola, define key developments in European history, and while these texts are not solely specific to the study of art history, art scholars will find much relevant here, including the canon of classical architecture as represented in the writings of Vitruvius, Alberti, Palladeo, and Vignola; guides to painting and sculpture by Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and others; and Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists.

What is even more exciting is that Emory owns many of these rare editions, which puts us in the company of other great libraries, such as Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the Vatican Library.

Database Title: Oxford Bibliographies Online.  Music

Database Description: 

Emory University alumni/alumnae now have access to a selection of library databases from EBSCO. 

http://www.alumni.emory.edu/benefits-and-services/perks-and-merchandise/library-research-databases.html

First, alumni/alumnae  must register and join the Emory Alumni Association Online Community.  Then, they will receive the user ID and password to log-in and access members-only features.

Benezit Dictionary of Artists via Oxford Art Online platform  (http://libcat1.cc.emory.edu:32888/DB=zvda)

Benezit’s Dictionary of Artists (Woodruff Library Reference N40 .B46 2006), a great resource for finding obscure artists, has been transformed into an online database.   In addition to biographical information, entries include images of artists' signatures, monograms, and stamps, as well as bibliographies, gallery/museum holdings and auction records with prices.  Cross-search with other Oxford Art Online resources, such as Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

Database Title: First World War: Personal Experiences
http://libcat1.cc.emory.edu:32888/DB=amww1
Dates of Coverage: 1914-1918

Database Description:
A collection of primary source documents focusing on personal experience during the Great War. The collection includes diaries, journals, letters, trench literature, postcards, scrapbooks, albums, photographs, art, ephemera, sheet music, cartoons, propaganda and maps.