Topic 3

Major Resources in the Arts Administration Field

The Arts Administration department at the University of Kentucky has compiled a list of peer-reviewed journals in the field, and reading through the titles of the journals is a good way to start identifying relevant research organizations in the field.

As you start your doctoral program, you will also want to familiarize and/or re-familiarize yourself with online database resources, such as Mintel Academic (which provides consumer and market reports) and GuideStar Pro (which provides financial information on nonprofit organizations). These library subscription databases are very helpful for arts administration researchers.

The final assignment in this module invites you to consider some of the research databases used in arts administration and offers practice at identifying places to find various materials. One term that comes up frequently when libraries talk about research databases as well as a key concept of this assignment is “index.”

The concept of “indexing” a periodical title (the whole run of an academic journal) in a database is akin to the index for a book: someone—such as a professional indexer or bibliographer, or, increasingly, a machine—identifies the key terms for every single article published in every issue of that periodical. Periodicals indexers’ key terms include authors’ names, article titles, publication dates, and—crucially—subject keywords. They enter the terms into their companies’ searchable database products. These research databases are most often provided online and sold via subscription to research libraries, who, in turn, provide access to the researchers associated with the library institution.

This information on databases should help you with some of the thought experiments in the assignment. Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions you have about library resources for your field.