Free Art Resources on the Internet!

Mei Tan :: Mei_Tan@ntu.edu.sg
Subject librarian for Art

It is a known fact that one can find all kinds of information on the internet ranging from health matters to entertainment. Resources of all kinds abound. It is no less true in the area of art, design and media. Nevertheless, websites are not easily maintained. Sites are often not updated or else found to be broken.

With that in mind, the subject librarians of Art, Design and Media have found some pertinent and reliable art resources that may offer interest to art students working on projects or looking for some initial relevant materials for a term paper or simply looking for study tools that might help them along in their revision.

The following are some of the resources :

Timeline of Art History
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm

In the area of art history for instance, the Timeline of Art History administered by The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers a comprehensive site where the history of art is arranged in three different approaches: chronological, geographical and thematic. This is a site that is highly recommended for any beginners in the history of art as it offers easy navigation across a vast art historical period of over 20,000 years. For those who may find the dates a trifle confusing, the site can also be accessed through special topic categories. There are also special write ups at the end of each entry often by leading experts in their area of specialty.

Artcyclopedia
http://www.artcyclopedia.com

Another recommended site is Artcyclopedia that functions like any print encyclopedia taken off the shelf. It has a database of 8,500 artists listed, 2,300 art sites indexed and users are given access to 180,000 works of art. Users can search the database through a number of ways (artists, artworks or even by art museums). The site can also be browsed by the different art movements ranging from Early Renaissance to abstract expressionism. This is a helpful site for quick reference for any art student looking into a particular art period or for quick biographical information of an artist.

Visible Language
http://www.id.iit.edu/visiblelanguage/

A site worth exploring for any serious art student in graphic design is the reputable Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)’s Visible Language. This site consists of an index of feature articles dealing with issues in typography, design, hypertext, psychology of reading.

Information Design
http://tech-head.com/info.htm

Other equally helpful sites in communication and design include Information Design. This site offers various links to information design and also the practice of gathering, filtering, and presenting information through effective design principles to further enhance understanding and communication.

There are thousands of other sites that may prove more useful and we recommend some internet evaluation tools that could be use to assess the sites for such purposes.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html

This website provides information regarding evaluating internet sites with helpful online examples.

Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A Guide for Library Instruction http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues1998/julyaugust6/teachingundergrads.htm

This is an article that offers five basic guidelines to use when evaluating a site.