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Indexing Specialized Materials Summary

Indexing Art and Art History Materials

by Marilyn Rowland and Diane Brenner

Interested in indexing art history materials? You'll find information on how to get started, how to index works of art, names of artists, and indexing concepts in an article included in Indexing Specialities: History; a new publication by the American Society of Indexers. 

Below are selections from the article and a list of Web sites referred to in the article. We'll be adding more Web sites and related information here, to keep the article up-to-date. Please feel free to contact the authors for more information.

Sample Section

Surprisingly, art and art history books, even those thick with details about artists and artwork, do not always have indexes. In fact, they often don’t have indexes, or only cursory ones. Why is this? Well, according to some publishers, art books don’t need indexes because the organization of the book, including tables of contents, chronologies, lists of illustrations, or glossaries provides sufficient structure to allow readers to find what they are looking for. In other cases, the omission of the index may be a cost consideration or a lack of awareness of the importance of an index, even in a book consisting mainly of illustrations. Sometimes, even lengthy introductory discussions or historical essays are viewed as “too short” to bother indexing. 

In those art and art history books that do have indexes, there is considerable variety in style and format. Sometimes this is because the indexer and the client have developed a style designed to meet the specific characteristics of the book. Sometimes it is because the indexer is not familiar with art history or aware of art history indexing conventions and does not know how to index art history materials effectively. 

We hope, in this article, to provide some guidance on indexing books on art and art history: traditional art history text books, coffee table art books, how-to books on art techniques, and books on related topics, such as crafts, architecture, design, photography, fashion, and, sometimes, archaeology and anthropology. Our goal is not to dictate rules to be applied in every situation, but to provide the knowledge to know what questions to ask in each situation and where to go for important information.

Web Resources

If you want to find art or art history sites on the Internet, or, if you want to find information about a specific subject, all you have to do is load one of the search engines (Lycos, Excite, Alta Vista, Yahoo) and type the words you want to search, e.g.,  "art history" in the space provided.  To help you sort through the possibly thousands of responses you might get, here are a few sites we found especially helpful. 

Voice of the Shuttle (Alan Liu) 
A truly vast, thorough and current listing from the University of California at Santa Barbara of virtually everything relevant to art and art history with side links to similarly detailed pages on archaeology, architecture and photography. 

Art on the Web (Jeff Howe) 
Another vast, current list produced at Boston College. A bit more of an art history education focus, with emphasis on "visual literacy." 

History of Art Virtual Library
This comes from Birkbeck College at the University of London and has a broad European focus. Side links into the Museums Virtual Library and the Architecture Virtual Library. 

Art History Resources on the Web (Chris Witcombe) 
http://witcombe.bcpw.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html 
Yet another detailed list of art history resources, by time periods, compiled by a professor of Art History in the Department of Art History at Sweet Briar College, Virginia. 

National Museum of American Art
A great source of information on American art, including a useful reference section and an opportunity to ask questions. 

The Art & Architecture Thesaurus
The AAT is a controlled vocabulary for describing and retrieving information on fine art, architecture, decorative art, and material culture. 

The Union List of Artist Names
The ULAN is a database of biographical and bibliographical information on artists and architects, including a wealth of variant names, pseudonyms, and language variants. 

And don't forget one of best all-purpose resources...

The Library of Congress
The Library of Congress has a vast collection of American art and photography, as well as a search engine that lets you find books in their collection by subject as well as author, title, etc.  Everything about everything and a great way to check titles and names. 

Please feel free to suggest art history links that you have found especially useful. E-mail Marilyn Rowland, and we'll be happy to add art and art history links that would be helpful to indexers.