Architecture Studies

JSTOR, a collection of full text articles from over 600 scholarly journals in various fields, including African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, and sociology [link from library's page at http://www.library.unlv.edu/search/databases/index.html], has initiated an exciting new feature.

A JSTOR search now includes two new tabs at the top, one linking to articles in JSTOR with images, and the other linking to ARTstor images. ARTstor [available to UNLV library patrons at the same link as above] includes hundreds of thousands of digital images in the arts and other fields.

Search Taj Mahal in JSTOR and see how it works! This is a powerful new tool for those of us searching images.

In further news, CSA Illumina is working with ARTstor to enable links from searches in the Avery Index and the Design and Applied Arts Index to ARTstor. Coming soon!

The ASL has the Reed Design Registry on CD. Ask at the desk for NA53 R44x 2005. This electronic resource allows you to search by project type/subtype, and by type of staff (e.g. architects, landscape architects). You can also specify the number of staff at a firm, if you want to limit to large or small firms. Coverage is international.

To determine which local architects specialize in certain building types, you can check the AIA Las Vegas Directory and Resource Guide, which has an index by areas of practice. This directory is in the ASL reference section NA55 L37 A48c.

Another approach to local architects is to search the Las Vegas Architects and Buildings database http://www.library.unlv.edu/arch/archdb/arch.php by building type. This database contains information on both the architect and the building, as well as lists of published sources available in the library.

InformeDesign http://www.informedesign.umn.edu/Default.aspx provides summaries of research in design fields or applicable to design fields. The research comes from articles, books, and reports, and the original publication is cited in the research summary. The summary also includes design criteria, key concepts, and notes on the research methodology.

This clearinghouse is aimed primarily at architects and interior designers, although there is much of interest to other design fields. The project is a collaboration between the University of Minnesota and the American Society of Interior Designers.

The research summaries are both keyword searchable and accessible by topic. Topics are grouped into three broad areas: space, occupants, and issues. As an example of its broad coverage, there are 431 research summaries in the category of Outdoor Space. In the area of Hospitality/Restaurant, of particular interest to Las Vegas, there are 136 research summaries.

This is a tool for all designers interested in how current research might impact their design projects!

The announcement of Google's News Archive service http://news.google.com/archivesearch proved a catalyst for some trial searches for turn-of-the-last-century architect George Barber. Barber fans will be pleased to know that some items did turn up, although they will definitely need to search America's Historical Newspapers, one of the UNLV Libriares databases [limited to UNLV faculty and students; at http://www.library.unlv.edu/collections/newspap.php] as well.

Google News Archive search proved effective for the more recent past, but America's Historical Newspapers was more productive for turn-of-the-century materials.

Another point worth noting: many of the items retrieved in the Google search are only available for a fee. For America's Historical Newspapers, the subscription fee has been paid by the Libraries! And before you pay to access items in the Google results list, check UNLV Libraires newspapers databases -- some of the items in the Google results are in newspapers available in Libraries' databases.