2 Art & Architecture

Museum
Museum by Guillaume Burneau CC BY-NC-ND

Book Collections & Textbooks

  • A Quick and Dirty Guide to Art, Music, and Culture: Written/compiled by Clayton Funk at Ohio State University; chapters include: Abstract Painting in the 1950s; Rock and Roll and Youth Culture; Pop Art and New Kinds of Rock; New Art and Music for New Consciousness; Television and Utopia and the 1970s; MTV and Music in the 1980s; At the Millennium: Art and Music in the 1990s; Neo-Expressionism, Punk, and Hip Hop Emerge. [CC BY]
  • Books in Architecture (Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg eBooks may be freely used in the United States because most are not protected by U.S. copyright law; some titles may copyrighted titles, and in many those cases, the copyright holder has given permission for unlimited non-commercial worldwide use. [Public Domain]
  • Introduction to Architecture: Written as a complement to Paul Goldberger’s text, Why Architecture Matters; text assumes no prior knowledge of architectural history and focuses on the vocabulary of architectural analysis, as well as case studies on individual architects and structures. [CC BY-NC]
  • Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema: Written by Russell Leigh Sharman, a writer, filmmaker and anthropologist who has worked as a writer for several studios and production companies, including Warner Bros., Fox, & Disney. [CC BY-NC-SA]
  • Smarthistory Art Guide Collection: Byzantine Art; Italian art in the 1400s; Guide to Italian art in the 1300s; Guide to Ancient Roman art; Ancient Greek; Ancient Etruscan; Ancient Aegean; Ancient Egyptian; Ancient Near Eastern. [CC BY-NC-SA]
  • Wikibooks: Acoustics: Acoustics is a featured book on Wikibooks because it contains substantial content, it is well-formatted, and the Wikibooks community has decided to feature it on the main page or in other places. [CC BY-SA]
  • OpenBook Publishers: Cinema and Photography: “We are the leading independent Open Access publisher in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the UK: a not-for-profit Social Enterprise run by scholars who are committed to making high-quality research freely available to readers around the world.” [CC BY]
WIKIPEDIA
Why is the common knowledge resource still neglected by academics?

In 2005, Nature published a study describing Wikipedia as going “head to head” with Britannica[1]. While the claim was disputed by Britannica, since then Wikipedia has grown 6-fold in the number of articles; is >85 times the size of 120-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, measured by word count; and has substantially improved its quality. Yet, Wikipedia is still treated with suspicion by the professoriate and sneered at in academic circles[2].

Some professors dislike it when students cite Wikipedia. And while no encyclopedia should be the only source in academic-level essays, it should be emphasized that Wikipedia’s primary duty is to report and accurately refer to all sources that were actually used, with no exceptions.

We need to change this. Writing a Wikipedia article is a perfect academic assignment for students. It requires finding reliable, verifiable sources, synthesizing that content, writing an encyclopedic entry: a true paragon of scholarly effort and transferable information literacy skills. Moreover, it makes the professor’s life so much easier because a new article is often checked for plagiarism and commented on by members of the community. However, I believe there are even more important reasons for students and scholars to appreciate Wikipedia. Billions of people do not have access to free knowledge.

The fact that Wikipedia development makes our coursework easier is only a nice bonus.

source: Jemielniak D. (2019). Wikipedia: Why is the common knowledge resource still neglected by academics?. GigaScience8(12) CC BY,

 

Repositories & Research

  • Open Access at The Met: Materials filtered by “Open Access” are either those that the Museum believes to be in the public domain, or those to which the Museum waives any copyright it might have. In 2017, The Met made all images of public-domain works in its collection available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0), to use, share, and remix.
  • Collections — Google Arts & Culture: a non-profit initiative that works with cultural institutions and artists globally. The Cultural Institute platform only accepts only copyright free or copyright cleared content.
  • Smarthistory: An art history resource and collaboration of more than five hundred art historians, curators, archaeologists, and artists; official provider of art history for khanacademy.org; supports the ethical and open sharing of cultural knowledge. All resources are published under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. [CC BY-NC-SA]
  • American Art and Architecture Commons: “The Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.”
  • Wikimedia Commons: Category —Architecture: subcategories culture; date; location‎; material; media‎; and more. CC BY-SA
  • Smithsonian Institute Gallery of Artists: Digitized collection of artists held at the Smithsonian. Includes: Artists in StudiosArtist’s Self PortraitsArtist’s LettersActors and ActressesArt InstructorsDesigners, and more.
  • The Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collections“LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of more than 147,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.”
  • ART110 Art Appreciation: Guide from Colorado Community College System (CCCS) – CCCOnline. Materials have been librarian-curated from a variety of sources and vetted for content and alignment by subject matter experts. [CC BY]
  • Getty Search Gateway: A search tool designed to help researchers, scholars, and educators discover resources across the Getty collections, including collections in each the four programs: J. Paul Getty Museum; Getty Conservation Institute; Getty Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute. Users can use the tool to browse collections broadly, by type of resource (i.e., paintings, books, archives), or to search directly for assets related to very specific subjects—historical periods, artists, object types, etc.

OER SPOTLIGHT:  ART & ARCHITECTURE

Google Arts & Culture: is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world. It utilizes high-resolution image technology that enables the viewer to tour partner organization collections and galleries and explore the artworks’ physical and contextual information. The platform includes advanced search capabilities and educational tools.

Images

  • Flickr Commons Collections: Most photos tagged as “no known copyright restrictions.” Under “The Commons,” cultural institutions that have reasonably concluded that a photograph is free of copyright restrictions are invited to share such photograph under their new usage guideline called “no known copyright restrictions.” Included in Collection: Gottlieb Jazz PhotosSan Diego Air and Space Museum’s Library and Album ArchivesAmerican Memory: Color photographs from the Great DepressionThe George Grantham Bain Collection, plus more.
  • WorldImages Collections: The internationally recognized WorldImages database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project. It has just been selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collection of Internet materials. It contains approximately 100,000 images, is global in coverage and includes all areas of visual imagery. The images can be located using many search techniques on the top menu, from Search the Collection or the field-specific Search.
  • Architecture Images: Unsplash grants irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos for free.
  • Archives of American Gardens: The Smithsonian’s collection of resources that document the history of gardens in America. “The Archives inspires new ways of interpreting garden history and design so that America’s rich garden heritage can be better understood, appreciated, and enjoyed today and in the future.”
  • Arts & Culture Images: Unsplash grants irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos for free. [Unsplash license, copy, modify, distribute, commercial & non-commercial use]
  • Flickr: Library of Congress Image Albums: “Looking at pictures opens new windows to understanding both the past and the present. Favorite photos are often incorporated in books, TV shows, homework assignments, scholarly articles, family histories, and much more. The Prints & Photographs Division takes care of 14 million of the Library’s pictures and features more than 1 million through online catalogs. Offering historical photo collections through Flickr is a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images more widely.” [ No known copyright]
  • Art Images for College Teaching: “Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) began as a personal project dedicated to the principle of free exchange of image resources for and among members of the educational community.” [CC0]

Videos

  • TED Talks: Photography: A collection of TED Talks on the topic of Photography. [CC BY-NC-ND, unless otherwise noted]
  • TED Talks: Art: A collection of TED Talks on the topic of Art. [CC BY-NC-ND, unless otherwise noted]
  • Film History CrashCourse Playlist: Includes 16 episodes about film history. Based on an introductory college level curriculum, covers how our brains make meaning out of still images placed side-by-side in rapid succession; discusses the birth of the moving picture and the innovations that made sound and color possible; explains how the studio system rose to power and then collapsed; contextualizes the uses of film around the globe, including as propaganda.

Interactive

  • H5P Content: The Arts: The eCampusOntario H5P Studio site uses H5P, an open source plugin, to allow content authors to easily create interactive content for their courses or other instructional projects. eCampusOntario H5P Studio is provided as part of our set of Open Publishing tools and developed by the Wilfrid Laurier University Library. [CC BY-NC-SA, unless otherwise noted]

  1. 1. Giles J. Internet encyclopedias go head to head. Nature. 2005;438:900–1. [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Ref list]
  2. Jemielniak D, Aibar E. Bridging the gap between Wikipedia and academia. J Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2016;67:1773–6. [Google Scholar] [Ref list]

License

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Open Educational Resources (OER) Directory Copyright © 2022 by H.S. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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