Furman University home page
FYW: Inside the White Cube: Find Background Information
Biographical Information
- Grove Art OnlineScholarly art encyclopedia covering all aspects of Western and non-Western visual art. Iincludes the full text of The Dictionary of Art, containing more than 45,000 articles (more than 21,000 biographies and 500,000 bibliographical citations). Also includes images of the most frequently studied works of art.
- Biography (Gale In Context)Combines over 280,000 biographies from sources such as Contemporary Authors, Encyclopedias of World Biography, Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Contemporary Musicians, Historic World Leaders, & more.
- Biography Reference BankContains biographical full-text articles, page images, abstracts and articles from magazines and journals—providing current coverage of an individual’s life and work.
Select E-Sources
Reliable, scholarly alternatives to Wikipedia.
- Credo ReferenceProvides access to more than 1300 titles, covering every major subject - from art to medicine, psychology to history, and technology to literature.
- Gale EbooksGale eBooks is a Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
- Oxford Reference OnlineIndexes the full text of over 100 Oxford subject encyclopedias and dictionaries.
- Sage Reference OnlineOnline versions of reference titles from Sage Publications.
THE Dictionary
- Oxford English DictionaryThe definitive dictionary of the English Language, including comprehensive etymologies, first date of usage noted by excerpt from attributed author. Incomparable.
Select Sources
- SmarthistoryThe Center for Public Art History
Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in ArtCall Number: Reference Coll N7560 .H34 2008
Encyclopedia of AestheticsCall Number: ebook
Why start with Reference Sources for Background Information?
When we talk about "background information" for research, we're not talking about the history of your topic. We're talking about the first stage of your research. Before you dive into articles and books, it's a good idea to have an overview of your topic. This can help you discover what interests you most about it and what you would be most excited about researching. That way, you can narrow your book and article searches to the items most relevant to your interests. Reference sources (encyclopedias, primarily) are filtered both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality, so they're concise and trustworthy - an excellent place to go to get that overview.
Find more
Find more print and electronic encyclopedias through the library catalog by adding your keyword(s) to this reference-specific search: