Key subject collections

  • Academic Search Complete ★
    Good for all areas of Architecture and Interior Design, including some not covered by Art Full Text.

  • Art Full Text ★
    Good for all areas of Architecture and Interior Design. Search together with Academic Search Complete.

  • British Periodicals Collections I and II
    Articles from the late seventeenth to early twentieth century. A useful source of primary material on design history.

  • Construction Information Service ★
    Use the Search box to find journal articles and ebooks.

  • GreenFILE
    Covers all aspects of human impact on the environment.

  • JSTOR Arts and Science 1,3 and 7 ★
    Wide range of topics and subject areas. The most recent articles were published three to five years ago. Includes some ebooks.

  • LexisLibrary
    Great for trade press and newspaper articles. Click on the News tab, then you can go straight to a newspaper search for your keyword/phrase or use the Industry, Subject, Region filters.

  • Wiley Online Library
    Wide range of topics and subjects. Focus is scientific or technical.
  • Bloomsbury Applied Visual Arts
    A collection of e-books which combine visual inspiration with research techniques, portfolio development and more, across the main visual arts disciplines including Architecture and Interiors, Design, Textiles. After logging in, select your area from "Explore Disciplines" to browse e-books by key topics and the different aspects of your discipline.

  • Bloomsbury Design Library
    Design and crafts worldwide, from 1500 BCE to the present day. Cross-searchable access to a broad range of reference works, e-books, images, designer pages, and exhibition collections. Reference works include the landmark, 3-volume Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design, and World History of Design (a multi-volume work).

  • Construction Information Service
    Find material on architects, materials or techniques using the Search box or use Knowledge Workspace (formerly Specify-it) to search for suppliers of a material or product. Find standards, regulations and specialist information via the main Construction Information Service - CIS search.

  • Credo Reference
    Encyclopedias and reference books. Gives an overview and introduction to a wide range of topics.

  • Vogue Archive (Textiles)
    The entire run of the US edition of American Vogue from 1892 onwards. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included.

  • WGSN (Textiles)
    Trendsetting and forecasting site, with news from catwalk shows, including images. Watch this 11 minute video to learn how to use WGSN.
  • ARTSTOR
    Contains images and media from photo archives, museums, libraries and artists, including rare materials not available anywhere else. Also contains Open Access collections from partner museums. All content is rights-cleared for education and research.

  • BoB (Box of Broadcasts) National (film, film clips, television and radio)
    Film, television and radio broadcasts from UK terrestrial stations. Good for interior design, style trends, architecture and the cinema.

  • Bridgeman Education (images)
    Visual images database of the Bridgeman Art Library. A comprehensive guide to worldwide content from international museums, galleries, historic houses, private collections, photographers and artists.

  • Europeana
    Multi-lingual collection of millions of digitized items from European museums, libraries, archives and multi-media collections. Includes images, texts, audio and video.

  • JSTOR Open Community Collections
    These continuously expanding Open Community Collections feature freely accessible primary source materials in a wide variety of subjects contributed by libraries, museums, and archives.

  • The Public Domain Review
    Covers Images, Film, Audio and Books searchable by time period or theme.

  • Smithsonian Open Access
    The Smithsonian has released 2.8 million images from its vast holdings. All are in the public domain as Creative Commons Zero, meaning they can be used without permission from Smithsonian.

  • Visual Arts Data Service
    Over 140,000 images from over 300 art and design collections in the UK, free for use in education.

  • World Digital Library
    Includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings and films.
  • BoB National: Box of Broadcasts
    Over a million television programmes. Wide range of topics and subject areas.

  • Lexis Library
    Newspaper articles, UK broadsheets and tabloids. 1980s-present day. Once you’ve accessed this database, make sure you select News on the menu bar near the top of the screen.
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