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Online Encyclopedias
- Oxford Art Online - Grove Art Online This link opens in a new window30,000 signed articles and images on visual arts, over 6,000 subject entries and 20,000 biographies, and 7,000 searchable images. This resource also includes the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2nd edition), The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. (NVCC)
- Biography (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new windowBiographical information on over 380,000 people from throughout world history; from encyclopedias and news articles. (NVCC)
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window(Formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library) includes full-text encyclopedias, handbooks, and other sources for multidisciplinary research. (VIVA, NVCC)
- Britannica Academic This link opens in a new windowFully-searchable collection of authoritative encyclopedia articles. (NVCC)
- Artlex - Art DictionaryDefinitions for more than 3,600 terms used in discussing art / visual culture, along with thousands of supporting images, pronunciation notes, great quotations and cross-references.
Why to Use Reference Books
An encyclopedia is a type of reference book. Use a reference book to:
- Define important vocabulary words related to your topic,
- Find a basic overview and main issues related to your topic,
- Find references to additional resources, and
- Discover important background information related to your topic.
You will typically not use a reference book or encyclopedia as a source in your research. The information in these sources is for your own background knowledge.