The Art Institute of Chicago

Death Dates

The Social Security Death Index is a freely available resource that provides death dates for Americans who had social security numbers. Another source is Ancestry.com, which the Ryerson librarians can search for you.

Types of material covered: Death dates

Design Abstracts Retrospective

Provides coverage of more than 100 design and design-related journals most of which have ceased publication, but which are distinctly important to the development of design concepts in the early 20th century.  DAR provides broad, international coverage on a wide range of subjects in the fields of industrial and product design, architecture, interior design, furniture design, ceramics, glass, jewelry, metalsmithing, fashion and textile design, graphic design, and others.

Types of material covered: Journal articles only
Dates covered: 1894-1986

Design ProFILES

Covers more than 100 journals and yearbooks, including important titles that have not been indexed or abstracted before. It provides information about more than 8,000 designers and design-related organizations that were influential in the 20th century world of design, including over 1,000 female designers.

Types of material covered: Profiles of designers and design organizations
Dates covered: 1894-1986

Design and Applied Arts Index

Contains over 130,000 annotated references from more than 500 design and craft journals on industrial and product design, architecture, interior design, furniture design, ceramics, glass, jewellery, metalsmithing, fashion and textile design, graphic design, etc.

Types of material covered: Journal articles only.
Dates covered: 1973 to present.

Designinform ReVIEW

Includes digitized nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century decorative and fine arts journals. Also includes a bibliography of useful web sites in international design and art.

Types of material covered: Full text journals and links to web sites
Dates covered: Journals are from the 19th century and early 20th

Digital Public Library of America

This portal allows users to search freely accessible digital surrogates of works held by libraries, museums, and archives across the country. Contributors include the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, the Yale Center for British Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Walters Art Gallery, the New York Public Library and others.

Types of material covered: Images, books, and other digitized sources
Access note: Free access. Available to everyone.

Dissertations and Theses

Provides access to citations and abstracts from all titles in the Digital Dissertations database. Titles published since 1997 have 24 page previews available. No full-text dissertations available.

Types of material covered: Masters and Ph.D theses.
Dates covered: 1861 to the present.