Information seeking in Arts and Culture
Table of contents
Information seeking is a process that goes hand in hand with the research process. A good starting point is to make an information seeking plan to help you be more systematic with information searches.
In arts and culture studies, research is published in
- scholarly articles
- books
- conference papers.
Databases
Main databases
Peer-reviewed articles are valued in all fields. They are published in academic journals. In many databases, you can limit your search results to peer-reviewed articles. This helps you choose scholarly and reliable sources. To find academic journal articles, use databases e.g.
- Databases for Arts and cultural studies
Other databases
- Multidisciplinary databases
- You can also use JYKDOK International articles search to search all databases in one go
- Best used to get an overview of a topic or quickly find one or two articles. For more systematic searches, use the databases above.
- Possible to limit search results to peer-reviewed articles.
- And Google Scholar
- Access Google Scholar via JYKDOK to get full-text access to articles
- Keep in mind that you cannot limit search results to peer-reviewed articles.
- You can check if an article is peer-reviewed by finding the article in JYKDOK International articles search: does it say peer-reviewed?
To access a database via JYKDOK, write the name of the database in the JYKDOK search box.
To browse databases: Browse for databases > choose Research Area: Art Research > choose eg. Articles
Databases usually offer useful search options and filters like scholarly/peer-reviewed articles filter. A database may have a thesaurus or subject terms dictionary of its own that can help with search terms.
Conference papers
Conference papers are usually included in the same databases that you use to search articles. Some databases allow you to limit search results to conference papers.
Books
To find books, go to JYKDOK. Additionally, it can be helpful to search e-book databases separately even though the e-books are included in JYKDOK search results. E-book databases allow you to extend the search to the full-text of the book.
- E.g. E-Book Central
Finna: Books not in JYKDOK collection may be found in Finna, which is the union catalogue of Finnish libraries, museums and archives. Order books from other libraries using ourinterlibrary service.