Ask a Librarian

During regular operating hours, the Dorothy H. Hoover Library is open to the general public and any print materials in the collection can be used on site during operating hours. Note that access to any internet-based electronic resources, databases, or online image collections is limited to current OCAD U students, staff, and faculty only.

If you want to sign out books as a visiting researcher, the following procedures apply:

• Direct Borrowing for undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty members, and staff from all participating Canadian universities is available. With a valid university ID card and a valid piece of photo ID, direct borrowers can sign out up to 15 circulating books.
• Special Membership is available for the general public for a cost of $100 for a 1 year membership.
• OCAD U Alumni with proof of graduate status can apply for Special Membership at a discounted price of $50 for 1 year.

Citations are an important part of academic writing; they help us track the history of an idea from its first iteration through to the present. By not using citations when borrowing ideas, concepts, images, or direct quotations from others, you are in danger of plagiarism or academic misconduct charges. View our OCAD U Library Citing Sources guide. 

There are three major citation styles:

• Chicago (17th edition) usually used for art history research
• MLA (8th edition) often for languages and literature research
• APA (7th edition) primarily used in design or the social sciences

Citations use two basic elements: the cited reference in the body of your paper and the bibliographic entry at the end of the paper. Each style has a unique format:

• Chicago (17th edition) uses footnotes or endnotes AND a Bibliography
• MLA (8th edition) uses in-text citations AND a Works Cited list
• APA (7th edition) uses in-text citations AND a Reference List

Verify with your instructor to see which style you are to use, the links above will offer guides from the Online Writing Lab from Purdue University which are useful for most questions on citations.

Omni is a portal that searches hundreds of different databases, catalogues, and other web resources; each with a different configuration and metadata standards. Given this volume of information, sometimes links to external resources are temporarily broken.

But trust that Omni is correct; the article, ebook, or streamed video that is indicated as being available in a database collection usually is accessible. You may just need to do a little extra work to get it! If you see an error message after clicking a "Full Text Online" link from Omni:

• try staying in the external database, then look for the "Search" button, or try clicking on the logo for the database (for ex.: GALE Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost Art & Architecture source, etc.)
• from the Omni results list, try cutting and pasting the title of the article, video, or image into the external database search box; note that for exact phrases you can use quotation marks to search for the exact title of the article you are looking for.

Usually this will then lead you to the article or resource. Note that if you are looking for a full text journal article, you can also try:

• type the NAME of the journal in Journal Search (do not type the title of the article, but the journal's name, such as Artforum, Canadian Art, IAQ, etc.)
• click the TITLE of the database that includes the journal title.
• on the database ejournal page, either BROWSE for the article using volume, issue, page numbers OR oftentimes you can keyword SEARCH words from the article TITLE within the ejournal.

You have various options:

• Interlibrary Loans: request books from other libraries through the Omni network. This allows you to request books from university libraries across Canada and many international collections. If the resource you are looking for is not in the Omni catalogue, use the Omni Blank Request form to make your request.
• Direct Borrowing: with a valid OCAD U ID card, you can sign out circulating books from most other university libraries in Canada, except the University of Toronto libraries.  See: "Borrowing Library Materials: Using Other Libraries."
• Worldcat.org: A quick way to search many GTA academic libraries, as well as the Toronto Public Library system, is to use worldcat.org.  This search portal is the "world's largest network of library content and services" and allows you to search for books by title, subject or author. When you find a book, click on the title to view the record, then scroll down and add your postal code. Worldcat will show you the closest library that has a copy of the book.
• Don't forget Internet Archive!  With millions of open access (OA) books, audio files, videos, software, the "wayback machine" and more, Internet Archive is a significant research tool. Most of the over 2 million books are in the public domain--so published 75 years ago from the current date--; however, more and more current OA books, monographs, anthologies are being uploaded. It works especially well for OCAD U print reference books which cannot be signed out over night by undergraduate students. Always check Internet Archive, as OCAD U has digitized over 300 books for this portal.

 

In general, it is best to FIRST start with comprehensive information sources. You are likely doing this already, as most people start researching topics with either a Google search and/or Wikipedia to find background information, key ideas and theorists, citations to articles, related terms, etc. However, we strongly encourage OCAD U researchers to begin with:

• academic encyclopedias to ground your research in an academic context;
• one of the best sources is Credo Reference , a portal that search over 750 academic encyclopedias, guides, handbooks at once!

Use broad search terms to start. For example, if you are researching an object from another time period or culture, then these eras and/or country/region names will be your first search terms. For example, if you are researching a nautilus shell cup from sixteenth century Germany, then the entry on Germany from Grove Dictionary in Oxford Art Online will help you evaluate the object through a material culture perspective. 

 

JSTOR is a journal database that provides access to hundreds of academic journals from all subject areas. There are over 200 art journals and JSTOR also has excellent coverage of design research. It is the most popular database in the library's collection and generally presents half of all the journal articles accessed here at OCAD U.  Is it the best source to use for peer-reviewed journals?

CONS:

• No peer-review limits: in general, the titles in JSTOR are scholarly; however it does not offer a specific "peer-review" limit like other databases such as Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA); so chances are you will find "peer-reviewed" articles, but it's not guaranteed.
• No current articles: JSTOR is an archival collection so it offers access to articles from every issue of journals from the first volume number to approximately 5-10 years from the current date. For current, cutting-edge research in art and design, it is not an ideal source for articles.
• No Canadian art & design journals: you can certainly find information on Canadian artists and designers, but there are no Canadian arts periodicals in the collection.
• Everyone uses JSTOR!: because the collection is so popular, there is the danger of missing out on journal titles that are more specialized to contemporary art practice. Ejournal collections such as ACM Digital Library ; SAGE Journals ; Taylor & Francis Journals offer unique cutting-edge research that is not accessible through JSTOR
• Why not use Omni instead? Omni searches through all our journal databases, including JSTOR, so you will be accessing much more comprehensive and current articles.

PROS:

• Excellent coverage of art history: JSTOR is ideal for searching obscure artists or artisans from all historic time periods.
• Excellent source for interdisciplinary research: because there are hundreds of journal titles from the sciences, humanities, social sciences, JSTOR is an ideal tool to search for information on visual and material culture.
• Ideal for accessing primary documents:as an archival database, you can search for exhibition reviews or academic essays published when an artist was alive. For example, by using the publication date limits you could see how Frida Kahlo's art was reviewed in the 1940s, or even when the first time Vincent Van Gogh was mentioned in an academic art journal!

We use a "first come, first serve" policy for our four group study rooms. So there's no need to book ahead, just come to the library and feel free to use one our rooms. Note that we offer a whiteboard and a projector in one of our rooms; whiteboard markers, VGA cables, or dongles can be signed out at the circulation desk.

Although Canadian art is covered in many sources, the best starting point for academic essays, exhibition reviews, interviews with contemporary artists is Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA). Although the database does not sound like an art-based research collection, it includes seminal publications including Canadian Art, Canadian Architect, C Magazine, Border Crossings and others. As well, major Canadian periodicals that publish exhibition reviews are included, notably the Globe and Mail, the Walrus, and Toronto Life. 

In second and third place are the databases Canadian Periodicals Index Quarterly (CPI.Q) and Art Source respectively.

Omni is a powerful portal that allows you to search almost all of our databases as well as our print library collections. It is the default search box accessible from the OCAD U Library homepage. By adding a search term, you could potentially find books, ebooks, exhibition catalogues, journal articles, images, streamed videos, and more.

Omni works best when you begin limiting search results by:

• Content Type (books, journal articles, images, etc.)
• Publication Date
• Discipline

Note that:

• all citations that indicate "Full Text Online" will allow you access the article or book from one of our various databases.
• if you see "Book" with a library call number (and an indication whether it is "Checked in" or "checked out," then this is a print book. You will have to come to the library in person to sign out the title.

 

Peer-review is similar to art critiques (crits) used in studio-based learning.  In studio classes, art and design work is evaluated by one’s peers in the studio.  Similarly, before an article is published, it must be read and approved by a board of scholars who decide whether it should be included in a scholarly journal or whether changes are needed before it is published. There are two basic ways to search for peer-reviewed articles:

1. When looking at your search results in Omni, there are many options on the left hand side of the screen, to narrow your search. Under "Availability" select "Peer-reviewed Journals" to see only peer-reviewed publications in your results list.

2. choose a Journal Article database, then read through the description of each to identify whether:

   • the database ONLY has peer-reviewed articles (ejournal collections such as Cambridge Journals ; Oxford Journals ; Project MUSE ; SAGE Journals ; Wiley Online Journals)

   • the database allows you to LIMIT search results to "peer-reviewed titles only" (database portals such as Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA))

This can be a challenging request. In general, our OCAD U Library Image Databases will offer effective coverage of art and design from all time periods and all cultures of the world, but these resources do not cover EVERY artwork ever created!

One of the foremost collections is ARTstor Digital Library which offers sample images from all historical eras, so you may want to select artworks for use in academic research based on what is available through this collection. The OCAD U image collection is searchable in this database. Note that it offers full catalogue records for each image (creator, date of creation, medium, dimensions, image rights information), so it offers all the information needed for full image citations. It also features impressive zoom-in capabilities for a fine detailed view of artworks.

Other options include:

• using the "Art Reproduction" limit in Art Source (listed under "document type") will allow you to search artworks published in art journals, although you will have to search our Journal Search to find if OCAD U has a print copy of the journal.
• try using Omni Search for the title of an art work in quotation marks.
• realizing that you can create your own digital images using our extensive art and design books! If you find a catalogue raisonné on an artist, then it will include every work produced by him/her/them. The library offers scanning on the premises, or just use your cellphone to take pictures!
• don't forget that Google Images offers a drag and drop image search, or you can cut and paste an image's URL to find citation information. Don't just rely on the keyword image search, which rarely provides accurate citation information and generally seems to only retrieve results from Pinterest! Use the "Search by Image" camera icon to find digital reproductions from art galleries or other academic sources.

If you have an exact citation for a journal article,

• type the NAME of the journal in Journal Search (do not type the title of the article, but the journal's name, such as Artforum, Canadian Art, IAQ, etc.)
• Note that we have some journals in PRINT only, but if we have access to an ejournal version, do the following:
• click the TITLE of the database that includes the journal title (for example, Gale Academic OneFile and Art, Design & Architecture Collection are databases that have Artforum)
• on the database ejournal page, either BROWSE for the article using volume, issue, page numbers OR oftentimes you can keyword SEARCH words from the article TITLE within the ejournal.

For example, for Canadian Art

• Journal Search indicates that OCAD U has full text issues from 1993 onwards as well a print copies from 1984
• By selecting the database CBCA, you can search for article titles or subjects only within Canadian Art