At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there are extensive resources
available for researching art objects, which can require additional
research methods beyond traditional ones. My research was greatly
facilitated by the helpful assistance of the librarians at the Thomas
J. Watson Library, the Robert
Goldwater Library, and the Uris
Library and Teacher Resource Center, as well as the librarian
at the Central Catalog.
Sources of information on art objects include (but are not limited
to) several general categories: monographs, art periodicals and indexes,
reference books (print and online), exhibition catalogs, auction catalogs,
museum bulletins, manuscript collections, photograph study collections,
videorecordings, and web sites. For this project, a number of these
sources were useful. A brief description of the key sources used follows.
For a basic introduction to artists, art movements and periods, styles,
and techniques, The Grove Dictionary
of Art (print or online) is invaluable. This resource covers art-related
topics throughout the world, from earliest times to the present. The
online version includes links to other relevant articles within the
text, making it a highly functional resource. The online version is
fee-based, but is available for free at the Lila
Annenberg Hazen and Joseph H. Hazen Center for Electronic Information
Resources at the Thomas
J. Watson Library in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at some
other libraries.
Periodical indexes, particularly Art Index, are the next step for
going more in-depth in many types of research. Available online at
WilsonWeb (also fee-based, but
free at many libraries), this index provides a searchable database
of art-related periodicals. The ability to limit the search through
Boolean operators, language, date, peer review, full text, and other
options helps in make searching this index fruitful.
Monographs and museum publications can be useful in obtaining detailed
information about art periods and movements, and about specific artists
and art objects. The Watson Library catalog (Watsonline)
is available at the museum's web site, www.metmuseum.org,
and is a great resource for locating relevant books, as well as articles
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The MMA Bulletin is an
invaluable source for information on items in the museum's collection.
Reference materials can include biographical sources such as Vollmer,
Benezit, Who's Who in American Art, and others. The Watson Library
maintains an Artist Vertical File on lesser-known artists. Other sources
for biographical information on artists include auction or sale catalogs.
Reference books on locations of paintings and art works, images in
artworks, and bibliographies of specific subjects within the art world
are all significant resources.
At the Met, the Central Catalog is an excellent starting point for
research on specific works of art. Using the accession number as a
starting point, researchers can access the subject area in which each
work of art is filed. The catalog is entirely on cards, and is not
online. Each item in the museum's collection has a card (or several,
tied together with string) that details the physical specifications
of the object, notes by curators, and bibliographic references (when
available). Visitors must make an appointment to use the Central Catalog.
The Goldwater
Library is dedicated to the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas,
and is open to adult researchers. In addition to reference materials
in the reading room, the library has compiled docent guides on a wide
variety of areas related to the collection. These guides include overviews
of the subject area, as well as detailed information on specific art
objects in the collection. The Photograph Study Collection contains
120,000 photographs relevant to this collection, and is open to the
public.
Films on artists, art periods, and art objects are another valuable
resource for detailed information or a general overview. The Uris
Library has individual TV/VCRs with headphones, allowing the researcher
to view videos at the library. Titles can be located through Watsonline,
the museum's online library catalog.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art web site, www.metmuseum.org,
is another source for information on specific pieces of art. From
each collection, 50 sample art works are viewable online, along with
brief descriptions. The one exception is that the entire European
Paintings collection is on the web site. The site also provides information
on the museum libraries and electronic resources.