Mary Cassatt - Breakfast in Bed 1897
All art books are assigned a call number beginning with the letter 'N.' Here is a more specific breakdown by category:
N – Visual Arts
NA – Architecture
NB – Sculpture
NC – Drawing. Design.
Illustration
ND – Painting
NE – Print Media
NK – Decorative Arts
NX – Arts in general
Ever wonder how books are shelved?
In this library we use The Library of Congress Classification System to organize books on the shelves. The LC SYSTEM organizes material in libraries according to twenty-one branches of knowledge called classes. The system uses letters to represent the twenty-one broad branches of knowledge. The letters I, O, W, X AND Y are not used.
The twenty-one classes are:
A – GENERAL WORKS
B – PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, RELIGION
C – AUXILIARY SCIENCES OF HISTORY
D – HISTORY: GENERAL & OUTSIDE THE AMERICAS
E – HISTORY: UNITED STATES
F – HISTORY: UNITED STATES LOCAL & AMERICAS
G – GEOGRAPHY, ANTHROPOLOGY, RECREATION
H – SOCIAL SCIENCE
J – POLITICAL SCIENCE
K – LAW
L – EDUCATION
M – MUSIC & BOOKS ON MUSIC
N – FINE ARTS
P – LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
Q – SCIENCE
R – MEDICINE
S – AGRICULTURE
T – TECHNOLOGY
U – MILITARY SCIENCE
V – NAVAL SCIENCE
Z – BIBLIOGRAPHY, LIBRARY SCIENCE & INFORMATION RESOURCES
These twenty-one broad subject areas are further divided into more specific subject areas by adding one or two additional letters as well as some numbers. For a more detailed breakdown of any subject, go to the Library of Congress web page.
So, How Do I Find a Book on the Shelf?
Try this exercise, which was put together by the librarians at Kent State University, to see if you have figured out the Library of Congress system!
Once you have some background on your topic and you've started to develop a focus for your research, you'll need to consult some books. Most of the best resources for research in art history are still books, and usually print books. During this COVID-19 era, I'm going to show you how to search for e-books.
In the video below, I show you how to do a simple keyword search in the Cerritos College Library Catalog and the Internet Archive to look for books on a topic. I also show you how to limit the results to just e-books. If you scroll down the page, you'll see subject headings you can also use to make sure you find all of the information we have on your topic. Further down this page you'll see lists of e-books and print books that have helped students in the this class in previous semesters.
Finding Books on Your Topic 
Once you have chosen a topic and done your background research you will be ready to conduct more comprehensive research using books.
Use the Library Catalog to find books available in the Cerritos College Library. Books can provide a broad overview of a topic or in-depth information. You can search for books by author, title, subject, or keyword. You can also limit to those books that are Available Online.
Use the Internet Archive to search through 20 million digitized materials including texts.
More specific call numbers for your topics may be found by searching the online catalog for the following SUBJECT and KEYWORDS:
|
Art/Painting/Sculpture (add any historical period to your search) Art Baroque; Art Rococo; Art 16th century; Art, Renaissance; Art Modern |
Additional subject headings Women Artists; Feminism and Art; Women in Art; Women Potters; Women Architects |
|
Art/Painting/Sculpture (add any country, region, or group to your search) Art Renaissance Italy; Art Spanish History; Art, American; Painting Flemish; Sculpture Italian; Sculpture Renaissance--Great Britain |
Artist’s name (Search by Subject or Author, type last name first) Anguissola, Sonfonisba; Cassatt, Mary; Kahlo, Frida; Potter, Beatrix; Powers, Harriet; O'Keeffe, Georgia; Vigée Le Brun, Elizabeth Louise |
Here are a few books available in the library which may be helpful in your research:
Art/Women/California 1950-2000 by 
Art: A Visual History by 
ART: the world of art, from aboriginal to American pop, Renaissance masters to postmodernism by 
Art in Europe, 1700-1830: a history of the visual arts in an era of unprecedented urban economic growth by 
The Art of the Renaissance by 
Creating Their Own Image: the history of African-American women artists by 
The First Pop Age: painting and subjectivity in the art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruschapainting and subjectivity in the art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha by 
In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States by 
Italian women artists : from Renaissance to Baroque
Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent
The Seventeenth Century by 
Women, Art, and Society by Women Artists: an illustrated history by