LibGuides: Arts in the Basic Curriculum: General Resources

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Open access

Onsite access only -- Richardson Memorial Library

Art Along the Rivers: A Bicentennial Celebration
Educator resource designed primarily for Missouri third grade, Illinois fourth grade, and middle school and high school social studies and visual arts students. The content and activities may be adapted for a variety of grade levels and subject areas.
Celebrate African and African American Art
Audio guide and selected artworks that celebrate the arts of Africa and the African diaspora, featuring diverse Black, African, and African American people, artists, and cultures.

Encyclopædia Britannica This link opens in a new window
The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia which is now published exclusively online. Subscription includes access to Merriam-Webster Unabridged.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Selective digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. The collections include top peer-reviewed scholarly journals as well as respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports from trusted institutes, Artstor images, and primary sources.
The most recent 3-5 years of journals are generally not available; this is known as a "moving wall."
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford’s art reference works, including the peer-reviewed, regularly updated Grove® Dictionary of Art and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Includes over 200,000 articles that span ancient to contemporary art and architecture, as well as over 19,000 images of works of art, structures, plans, and artist signatures.

ERIC This link opens in a new window
Over 800,000 references to thousands of educational topics. Includes journal articles, books, theses, curricula, conference papers, and standards and guidelines. Updated monthly. Includes links to full-text documents, with more than 107,000 non-journal documents (issued 1993-2004). While the database is free, ERIC does not hold copyright to the materials indexed in the collection.

Project Zero. "See, Think, Wonder." Harvard Graduate School of Education (2019)
Open access, printable routine that encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations
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Project Zero (PZ) is created by the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Boundless Art History
Online textbook covering art history from prehistory to the present, with global scope
Open Book Publishers
Nonprofit independent publisher that publishes open access titles on many different academic topics
Arts Textbooks
The Open Education Network provides open access to textbooks, free to to use and distribute, and licensed to be freely adapted or changed with proper attribution

Digital Public Library of America This link opens in a new window
Partnership of cultural heritage organizations who make a diverse range of content openly available to the public for scholarship, education, and personal edification.
Umbra Search This link opens in a new window
Widget and search tool created to enhance discoverability related to African-American culture. Includes digitized materials from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the U.S.

African and Asian Visual Artists Archive This link opens in a new window
140,000 images from over 300 British art and design collections, free for use in education
Europeana This link opens in a new window
Sophisticated infrastructure for accessing digitized cultural heritage from European archives, libraries and museums for enjoyment, education and research. Includes books, music, artworks and more.
National Gallery of Art Library Image Collections This link opens in a new window
Access to nearly 16 million photographic images from the NGA's Library. Focus is on western art and architecture, with strengths related to American, Dutch, French and Italian art, the arts of Asia, and the architecture of France, Italy and Germany.
Openverse This link opens in a new window
an extensive library of free stock photos, images, and audio, available for free use. All Openverse content is under a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.