All research begins with the language that you use to think about your topic. This language provides keywords, or the natural language you use to describe your research topic. Research topics in art and art history can be rich combinations of influences and subjects. You can begin to develop your topic with a specific material in mind, such as marble or bronze, or specific techniques such as mosaic or mural. Combining materials and styles in a particular place or period of time is a common way to develop a more complex research topic. You may also decide to consider a specific style, period, movement or genre. 

Start your search by developing a simple concept map of your topic using keywords to begin your search. Here is a sample keyword concept map to begin research on a Calligraphic Emblem, or Tughra

Phrases

You can often get better results if you search for a phrase by typing quotation marks around the phrase. You can also combine both words and phrases in your search. For example:

Islamic "miniature painting"

Note: If you do not enclose the phrase with quotation marks, Primo Search will find items that contain the individual words in the phrase, regardless of whether these words are located next to each other in the order specified.

Using Truncation to broaden your search

Enter an asterisk * at the end of a word  to perform a multiple character wildcard search. For example,

paint* retrieves the words paint, painter, painting, etc.

Using Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to broaden or narrow your search

To broaden your search, use AND or OR between the words or phrases you enter into the search box.

AND will search for items that contain all of the words or phrases.

OR will search for items that contain at least one of the words or phrases.

To narrow your search use NOT followed by the word or phrase you don't want to search for.  

Note: you must enter Boolean operators in uppercase letters. 

A subject heading is a descriptive phrase assigned to an item to describe its contents or subject. Finding the subject heading that leads to the information you need can be one of the most difficult aspects of doing library research. The keywords you use to describe your topic may not be the same words or in the same order as the subject headings used in the online catalog. If you were looking for book on illuminated manuscripts , you could use a variety of subject headings such as Calligraphy, Arabic or Illumination of books and manuscripts, Islamic.

Although they are complicated, subject headings are extremely useful. Start your search by using keywords relevant to your topic. From the catalog results list, find an item of interest and click on the full record to see the subject headings assigned to that item. Click on the relevant subject heading to retrieve more items in the same category.

When you become familiar with subject headings, you can search for them directly using Primo's Advanced Search. Below are some examples of useful subject headings for Islamic art and architecture:

Content on this page adapted from the Cornish College of the Arts Library and UBC Library.