Books are an important resource for art research. While some are available as ebooks, many are only available in physical form. To search for books, use the following:
*If you search for a book and find that the BYU Library doesn't have it, we'll get it for you free of charge from another library through Interlibrary Loan!*
Art books are cataloged (i.e. organized by call numbers) in the library according to the following subject patterns:
MEDIUM | ex: painting, sculpture, installation
NATIONALITY | ex: art, French; painting, American
GENRE | ex: landscape painting; portrait painting
TIME PERIOD | ex: art, modern--21st century; painting, French--19th century
STYLE/MOVEMENT | ex: baroque; impressionism (art)
N visual arts in general
NA architecture
NB sculpture
NC drawing, design, illustration
ND painting
NE prints
NK design, decorative arts
NX visual and performing arts
TR photography
Z 40-286 typography
Other Call Numbers for Inspiration
GN clothing & fashion
GR folklore
GT 500-2370 costume history
GV 1400 video gaming
HF advertising and marketing
PZ 4 Science Fiction
Q Science & Zoology (Illustration of science, nature, anatomy, etc.)
T 351-385 computer graphics
TS industrial design
TT 500 clothing
Children's books are excellent sources of inspiration and the BYU Library has thousands!
BYU Library Juvenile Literature Collection
To directly search the library's collection of children's books, start here. You can create tailored searches, or browse by suggested genres and subjects.
Caldecott Medal Winner & Honor Books
The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. This link provides a complete list of Caldecott Winner and Honor Books.
Internet Archive Children's Library
Digitized books for children from around the world.
Library of Congress | Children's Books Selections
This special collection presents children’s books selected from the General and Rare Book Collections at the Library of Congress. The collection includes classic works that are still read by children today, and lesser-known treasures drawn from the Library’s extensive collection of historically significant children’s books.
A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known works of an artist either in a particular medium or all media and may provide information like provenance, exhibition history, bibliographies, critical assessments, etc. (NYPL definition)
Catalogue raisonnés are rich and helpful research sources. To determine if an artist has any published catalogues raisonnés (in physical or digitized/electronic format), search the International Foundation for Art Research's (IFAR) Catalogue Raisonnés database.
To search for a specific artist's catalogue raisonné in the BYU Library collection, search for the artist's Last Name, First Name in combination with "catalogues raisonnes" in the Subject field.
Example: Subject (field) contains Klint, Hilma af AND catalogues raisonnes (search terms
Find a current list of catalogues raisonnés in the BYU Library.
Exhibition Catalogs are books published in conjunction with a museum exhibition. They include a list of artworks included in the exhibition, along with scholarly essays. To find exhibition catalogs related to a specific artist in the BYU Library collection, search using the artist's name in combination with the keyword "exhibitions". Example: Monet AND exhibitions
Museum Catalogs are catalogs of a museum's permanent artwork collection. To find catalogs for a specific museum in the BYU Library collection, search the name of the museum in combination with the keyword "catalog" in the Subject field and limit the Resource Type to "Books". Example: Metropolitan Museum of Art AND catalog
