This blog post focuses on the National Art Library’s collection of subscription art and design e-resources.
What are e-resources?
E-Resources are trusted information resources that are available online. The Library pays an annual subscription to provide access to many e-resources for the benefit of our readers and their research. Our subscriptions include journal article databases, e-books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias and auction sales records. It is free to join the library and details can be found on our website.
How do I access e-resources?
You will need to be in one of the V&A Study Rooms to access our subscription e-resources. You can access these on Study Room computers and on personal devices connected to the ‘NAL’ wi-fi network (ask staff for wi-fi login details).
There are three ways to discover e-resources:
- Library Catalogue Search Results
The library catalogue searches both our print holdings and the following e-resources:
- Art and Architecture Source
- Berg Fashion Library
- Dawson Era
- Early English Books Online (EEBO)
- EBSCO e-Book Collection
- JSTOR
- Oxford Reference
In addition to printed material available to request, your search results may include full-text journal articles and e-books available to read online:
To limit your search results to e-resources only, click ‘articles’ and/or ‘eBook’ under ‘Search Tools’.
Our e-resources provide access to both full-text articles and article citations. A direct link will only appear in your search results when the full-text is available online. If you find an article citation (no link), you can check if a print copy is available by searching for the journal title in the library catalogue. Find the journal title under ‘Source’ in the article citation search result:
Further guidance on how to request journals can be found here
- Complete List of Subscription E-Resources
Searching within each e-resource will yield more comprehensive results. A complete A-Z list of our subscriptions can be found by clicking Library Links (top right of screen) then E-Resources. Each entry displays a direct link to an e-resource and a brief overview of its coverage so that you can select the e-resources most relevant to your studies. Click on the title for more information if required.
- Browse our E-Journals
An A-Z list of our e-journal subscriptions can be found by clicking Library Links (top right of screen), then Browse E-Journals. Browse alphabetically or select the Search tab to find a specific journal.
Can I download articles and e-books?
Full-text articles can be downloaded and saved. Each e-resource has its own help pages to guide you through this process.
All e-books can be read online, however, download permissions vary across providers:
- Berg Fashion Library will allow you to save chapters as PDFs on your personal device or Study Room computer. Sign up to save titles to an online list and/or download to Adobe Digital Editions. See Help pages for guidance.
- Download Dawson Era e-books to your personal device for up to 7 days. After this time, the file will automatically vanish.
- Download EEBO books in full or select the range of pages required using the Marked List feature.
- EBSCO e-books can be partially downloaded or printed with the exact number of pages allowed given under ‘Publisher Permissions’ within each record.
- Save or download chapters / entries within Oxford Reference texts.
You can email downloaded files or save them to your USB drive on the Study Room computers. You can download and save to your personal device when connected to the NAL wi-fi.
Can I access e-resources outside of the Museum?
We understand that our catalogue is accessed across the UK and beyond. Due to licencing restrictions, we are unable to provide library members with access to subscription e-resources outside of the reading rooms. However, we have created a list of recommended freely available e-resources relating to art and design. We update this list regularly as resources are increasingly made available.
We will be posting further guidance via this blog over the coming months. If you have any feedback to share concerning the design of the library catalogue, please use the ‘Feedback’ link found at the bottom of each library catalogue webpage.
If you have a question for the National Art Library, please contact us directly here.
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Thank you for a good article