Gleeson Library’s Electronic Resources & Systems (ERS) department is delighted to highlight two recent electronic resource (e-resource) acquisitions: The Artforum Archive and Ebony Magazine Archive.
Artforum
Artforum (later called Artforum International), is among the leading magazines for coverage of international contemporary art; the archive includes all issues from its launch in 1962 up to 2020. Spanning six decades of reporting on art in all media, The Artforum Archive offers features, reviews, and interviews relating to artists, exhibitions, publications, and other art world events/trends.
This go-to database for a plethora of coverage on art shows at galleries and museums from over the last six decades also offers an especially worthwhile feature: the “browse issues” function (located at the very top of the page next to “Advanced Search”) where once you select an article from a specific issue you are able, by clicking “browse this issue,” to flip through all of the pages. This allows for leafing through the numerous advertisements for shows at art galleries, offering a visual immersion within the art world climate of the period.
The search function also turns up any number of interesting pieces. For instance, a keyword search for “San Francisco” returns results regarding shows at San Francisco Art Institute and SFMOMA from the 1960s and 1980s, respectfully, as well as an article on “different notions of what West Coast Art is all about.”
While a keyword search for “California” AND “Cool” returns notice of shows at the Palace of Legion of Honor and the Oakland Art Museum, along with a couple of shows by California artists at galleries in New York City, including a George Herms solo show in 1996.
Ebony Magazine
The Ebony Magazine Archive spans from the first issue in 1945 up through the 2014 issues of this monthly magazine with a focus on news, culture, entertainment, and stories, about and by the Black community. This full-text archive of more than 800 issues provides focused analysis upon Black business, history, politics, entertainment, fashion and culture.
Ebony is a rich resource to turn towards, offering as it does an in-depth perspective of Black popular culture from out the last seven decades. In addition, there’s also a wealth of articles pertaining to the Bay Area. For instance, a keyword search for “Black Panther Party”, an organization with Oakland roots, returns an original 1969 ideological piece by the group’s founder Huey P. Newton, along with a later 1988 look back on another early leader: “Whatever happened to… Eldridge Cleaver?” Meanwhile there’s also a review of an early-on 1970 book about the Panthers, Seize the Time.
The wide range of topics covered in Ebony is also evident in a snapshot of results for keyword search “San Francisco”: from legendary baseball team manager Dusty Baker, currently overseeing the Houston Astros, but once leader of the San Francisco Giants; to California and San Francisco city politics insider Willie Brown; onwards to the historic naming by the United Methodists of the “First Black Woman Bishop”, Leontine T.C. Kelly, to oversee the Bay Area back in 1984.
We hope when you have time that you’ll take a look around these terrific new archival additions to our e-resources making your own fascinating discoveries. Remember, as always, all of Gleeson’s databases may be found alphabetically listed by title on our Databases page.