General Resources
Links of interest to students of American art history
Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO):
and:
Dictionaries and Glossaries
If you hear or see an art term that is unfamiliar to you you may find the 3,600-term Artlex.com useful. If your word isn't there onelook.com will search over 600 dictionaries at the same time for you. A source of "Art History terminology, definitions, acronyms, names, pronunciations and related resources" from About.com is found in its Art History Glossary. TFAO offers definitions of museum terms in its report Museums Explained.
How to evaluate Web pages
It is inexpensive and easy for individuals to publish on the Web. For these reasons students should be aware that the Web is replete with untrue, inaccurate and incomplete information. Fortunately, the Web also has numerous pages describing how to evaluate Web sites, enabling students to confidently identify information of high quality and disregard undesirable material.
To learn how :
For further insights also see:
An important note to students and others on plagiarism and copyright abuse
Plagiarism is committing fraud in one's writing by not properly citing sources, paraphrasing others' ideas or quoting the words of others.
The newness, ease of use and openness of the Internet can lead well-intentioned yet uninformed individuals to misunderstand the proper use of Web-published intellectual property. Others purposefully cheat knowing the crimes they are committing. Students, scholars and newspaper reporters have been found guilty of plagiarism which is an illegal and unethical practice.
Emily Werrell, coordinator of Instruction and Outreach for Duke University's Perkins Library System, quotes Donald McCabe of the Center for Academic Integrity:
The Web has made plagiarism progressively easier for those who wish to cheat. Before computers and scanners became widely used, plagiarism was facilitated by laborious hand copying. Upon the widespread use of the computer and scanner, plagiarism became easier. If books or serials could not be checked out of the library, photocopies were made there, followed by machine OCR scanning of the photocopies, proofreading the digitized text, then copying and pasting it into a new electronic document. If the books or serials could be checked out of the library, the photocopying step was saved. With the advent of the Web, plagiarism reached a new level of ease. Plagiarists could now select digitized text, copy and paste it into a new electronic document.
Plagiarism.org offers important and thoughtful information for the benefit of students and educators concerning plagiarism in the electronic age.
Questions on citation of Internet sources are covered in Citing Internet Sources from Yale College.
A related issue is copyright infringement. Text that is properly quoted -- without plagiarism -- may violate the copyright held by of the owner of the text. For an explanation of Internet-related copyright issues see Copyright and Fair Use in the UMUC Online or Face-to-Face Classroom by the University of Maryland University College. Also, images that are thought to be "borrowed" from a Web site may violate the fair use rules of copyright laws. Posting of "borrowed" images on the Web may cause the images to be published in the eyes of the law and increase the risk of action on the part of copyright holders.
Also see TFAO's Art Law by Ann Avery Andres, Esq., which seeks to make artists and collectors be aware of copyright issues relating to art objects. Derivative Works And Copyright: Painting from Another's Photograph by Mary Ann Fergus from Spacetake is of interest to artists. [Link found to be expired as of 2015 audit. TFAO is saving the citation for use by researchers.]
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site contains content including text and images that are either the property
of Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. (TFAO) or other copyright holders
who have granted permission for TFAO to publish their content. For information
on use of materials published in our online publication Resource Library
please see its User Agreement
and legal notice. Neither Resource
Library or TFAO will assist you in securing permissions for materials which
it does not own.
Policy on outbound links
TFAO's website contains tens of thousands of outward links on thousands of pages through its publication Resource Library, plus projects, reports, studies and catalogues. All of the links are based on research by its volunteers. The links are directed to sources of knowledge mainly of use to scholars, instructors and students of American art. They are aligned with TFAO's mission statement: "The character of affairs of Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. is for charitable purposes including fostering education and nurturing understanding of American visual arts among student and adult populations through publications, guidance and counseling of nonprofit arts organizations and related activities."
Hints:
Notes:
1. The Archives of American Art collections include papers of artists, art dealers, art historians, collectors, and others; records of art galleries, museums, and art organizations; videos, and interviews from Awes oral history project. Many collections are available on microfilm at AAA's Research Centers in Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Marino, Calif., as well as in affiliated institutions serving unrestricted microfilm at the Boston Public Library and the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco. Online searches may be made on the Archives of American Art's Web page.
2. The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) contains the Smithsonian American Art Museum Research databases which include: 1) Inventories of American Painting & Sculpture which reference over 360,000 works in public and private collections nationwide, and include records from Save Outdoor Sculpture! -- images are not digitized; however, many photographs are available for study in SAAM offices; 2) Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, comprised of 127,000 negatives, which is a visual record of American art and artists photographed between 1896 and 1975 -- information is often sketchy or incomplete, recorded as found on the photographic negative or envelope; 3) The Art Exhibition Catalog Index which has descriptive information on nearly 136,000 art works shown in over 1,000 exhibitions held in the US and Canada up through 1876 (the Centennial year), and includes American and European artists in all media of art works -- painting, sculpture, prints, drawings, etc.
3. from Emily Werrell, "Copyright and Fair Use in a Digital World:
Teaching Research Ethics" in Library Magazine, Duke University
Library, vol. 17, no. 2, (Winter 2004) citing "CAI Research."
The Center for Academic Integrity, 2002-2003. The Center for Academic
Integrity, Duke University, 15 December 2003
Return to Resources for Collectors,
Life Long Learners, Students and Teachers of Art History
How to find content on our site using search engines:
Conduct keyword searches within TFAO's website and Resource Library, a collection of articles and essays honoring the American experience through its art, using the advanced search feature of these search engines:
Or, before entering keywords in a basic search, enter site:tfaoi.org.
Also see Indexes and information retrieval for more information.
Links to sources of information outside
of our website are provided only as referrals for your further consideration.
Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained
in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be
inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced
organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other websites, it takes
no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other
sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information
on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General
Resources section in Online
Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History. 
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