Databases A-Z

Contemporary artists in their own words, series illuminates their processes, practice, works, studios, philosophy, and more.

First issue 1962 through 2020. Cover to cover scanned issues.

Artstor is on the JSTOR platform effective 8/1/24. Digital image gallery with millions of images of works of art from museums, galleries, and private collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago. Artstor also includes AIC Collections, images curated by the Flaxman Library specifically for use in teaching and research at SAIC. Click here for tips on how to use Workspace for organizing images.

Education resource of images, videos, mini-lectures and scholarship of the decades which influenced or defined modern through contemporary art. The core intent is to replace the dominant white, male, heteronormative, advantaged, celebrity narratives for a more inclusive history balanced with the work of women, artists of color, LGBTQIA+ persons, intersectional makers, and the self-taught.

Sound archive freely available to download over 16,000 sound effects for “personal, educational or research purposes” from animal sounds to rattling window frames. Audio CDs of BBC sound effects are also available in the Flaxman Library.

This guide attempts to collect and curate the contributions of Black planners, scholars, artists, writers, organizers and practitioners from a variety of fields that are concerned with the process of organizing space and place in the urban environment.

Nearly 3,000 fashion videos from the YOOX-NET-A-PORTER Runway Archive Collections, this documents 1979 to 2003. No audio provided.

Princeton's Historic Avant-Garde Periodicals Digial Collection, fully searchable issues of important periodicals of the European avant-garde

Playlist of free online experimental films & videos for coping with COVID-19.

A guide to Chicago's neighborhoods and 77 officially designated community areas through Chicago-area archival collections from Explore Chicago Collections.

The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) gathers information about archival collections held by member organizations that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago. The searchable database includes records about collections that were processed or surveyed through the BMRC's Survey Initiative and Color Curtain Processing Project programs, as well as finding aids contributed from our members about relevant materials in their repositories.

A large public collection of contemporary art documentation from 80+ galleries and museums including hundreds of thousands of artists with more than 775,000 images, documents, and videos representing more than 21,000 exhibitions, performances, and other projects. CAL also produces Contemporary Art Daily.

Many issues digitized cover-to-cover from 1959 to 2008.

Multidisciplinary collection includes thousands of e-books covering a large selection of academic subjects and features e-books from leading publishes and university presses.

1,200 hours of vivid video capturing the many faces of fashion—including nearly 40 years of worldwide fashion shows, designer profiles, and documentary segments.

Audiovisual documentation of art events and performance art presented or supported by Franklin Furnace. Open Access.

The backfiles of the US and UK editions of Harper's Bazaar magazine, a fashion, arts, and culture authority from 1867 to the present. Scanned in full color, it features detailed indexing and searchable text.

Open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of many libraries.

American Prison Newspapers brings together hundreds of newspapers published within prisons by incarcerated people over the past 200 years. When complete, the collection will contain newspapers from prisons in every state, representing penal institutions of all kinds, including women-only institutions.

The Student Activism collection is intended to serve as a scholarly bridge from the extensive history of student protest in the United States to the study of today's vibrant, continually unfolding actions. The collection captures the voices of students across the great range of protest, political actions, and equal-rights advocacy from the 20th and early 21st century United States. The primary sources are broad-based across time, geography, and political viewpoint — from conservative to anarchist.

Video-based tutorials on a wide range of software, including: 3D, video, photography, web design, graphic design, and more; all organized by subject software, and instructor.

Utilizing and developing standards and best practices, the Material Order consortium provides a community-based approach to the management of design material collections with federated search access among participating institutions.

The Thomas J. Watson Library Digital Collections portal holds a wealth of documents and images including the museum's publications & exhibition catalogs, rare materials from the art libraries and costume institutes, and images of the artworks in their collection.

A selection of educational documentary features and series usually reserved for classroom screening by teachers.

Full-text access to OUP ebooks in the Oxford Scholarship Online collection published between 2020 and June 2025 in nine subject areas: Biology, History, Law, Music, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Social Work, and Sociology.

A curated and ever-expanding collection of acclaimed movies, archival restorations, award-winning documentaries and artist-made works from around the world.

VDB's educational streaming platform provides access to all the videos available for streaming in its collection of contemporary video and media art (ARTIC login required).

Collection of Wiley eBooks in all academic disciplines and dates. Flaxman Library has access to titles published from 2020 through 2025.

To create a more efficient and expedited platform to access self-identified Black authors in various fields to achieve equitable representation of Black voices in cited work authored by Black academics.

Collection of ebooks in all aspects of business and economic literature.

A selection of titles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion from more than 230 publishers.

EBSCO's curated collection of open access ebooks in many disciplines:  business, history, language arts, law, literary criticism, philosophy, political science, religion, social science, and technology.

Collections of issues freely available via the Internet Archive from 1933 to 2017.

Full-text resource covering the culture, traditions, social treatment and lived experiences of different ethnic groups in America.

Full-text resource covering all fields of social work, social science and family practice. 

Full-text resource covering family studies.

Indexes 1,787 active full-text journals in all aspects of the humanities.

A tool for faculty, students, researchers, and members of the community to access digital Indigenous studies resources, iPortal contains full-text electronic resources including articles, e-books, theses, government publications, videos, oral histories, reports, and digitized archival documents and photographs. From the University of Saskatchewan.

Citations, abstracts and some full text of historically significant early Left publications such as the 19th century writings of William Godwin, along with classic texts by Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Engels, are covered.

Indexing and full-text access to law journals for keeping up to date with current legal issues, studies, thoughts, and trends.

Provides scholarly and popular LGBTQ+ publications in full text, plus historically important primary sources, including monographs, magazines, newspapers and videos, plus a specialized LGBTQ+ thesaurus.

Literary ebooks covering all genres and time periods including thousands of synopses, critical essays, book reviews, literary journals and author biographies, plus a few full-text classic novels, short stories and poems.

Largest collection of leading biomedical full-text journals.

A curated and ever-expanding collection of acclaimed movies, archival restorations, award-winning documentaries and artist-made works from around the world.

Full-text psychology journals, including many from APA PsycInfo. Includes strong coverage in child and adolescent psychology and counseling.

Hundreds of full-text journals and magazines covering many religious and philosophical topics, including world religions, religious history, political philosophy and philosophy of language.

Full text articles from science reference eBooks.

Comprehensive cover-to-cover format from the first issue in March 1923 through December 2000.

Indexing & abstracts covering journals in the fields related to cities and urban planning.

VDB's educational streaming platform provides access to all the videos available for streaming in its collection of contemporary video and media art (ARTIC login required).

Indexing & abstracts covering topics related to the study of violence and abuse, including family violence, sexual assault, emotional abuse and others.

Indexing & abstracts covering journals in women’s studies and feminist research plus related disciplines, including sociology, history, international relations and humanities.