Art History Research: Getting Started: Books

Avery Librarians - Reference

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Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Librarians
Contact:
avery@library.columbia.edu
300 Avery Hall

Searching for books in CLIO

CLIO is the online catalog for the Columbia, Barnard and Union Theological Seminary libraries. (Read more about CLIO here). Doing a Quicksearch across all of CLIO will search:

  • Catalog
    Books, journals, U.S. government information, online resources, videos, and more
  • Articles+
    Journal articles, e-books, dissertations, and more
  • Academic Commons
    Digital repository of Columbia research
  • Libraries Website
    Information about the libraries from the Libraries Website
  • GeoData
    Columbia's catalog of geospatial data sets
     
To quickly search just for books, try searching in only the catalog section, as shown in the image below.
CLIO search screen showing catalog tab circled in red.
 
If you don't find results right away, try to use different keywords related to your topic. If you find a book that looks helpful, take note of the subject headings in the record, as shown in the image below. Clicking on these will take you to other books with the same subject heading.
 
CLIO record for book titled Clementine Hunter: Her life and art, showing subject heading section circled in red.
If the books you want are in Avery Library and you aren't sure how to locate them, check out our user guide here.

Searching for Books in WorldCat

Searching WorldCat will show you materials from libraries around the world, and when accessed through CLIO or the links in this guide, will also highlight what is in Columbia's library collection, as shown in the image below.

WorldCat search result showing book titled American folk art of the twentieth century and green highlighted text indicating the book is held at Columbia University Libraries.

Searching WorldCat is a good step to follow searching in CLIO. WorldCat sometimes has more detailed records for books, including those held in our libraries, and can lead you to books you might not have found otherwise if your search term is not in the brief record contained in CLIO. For example, if your search terms are in the table of contents or abstract and the CLIO record doesn't have those pieces of information, the WorldCat record will find your search terms and direct you to the book at Columbia. For books that are not held by Columbia University Libraries, WorldCat gives you the ability to see where the book is held.