LibGuides: Animation: Background Research + Tutorials

Recommended Databases

Background Research
Technical Books + Online Tutorials

For researching background details to inform your setting, characters, etc. in your work.

Start with General Search, then narrow down to searching in specific databases below.

If you want visual references, please see the Find Visual References section of this guide for lists of recommended places to look.

Grove Art Online
Covers global art from prehistory to the present, including artist biographies, bibliographies, and thousands of images. Also provides access to Oxford Companion to Western Art and Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Relevant to Fine Arts, Art History, and Critical and Cultural Studies.
JSTOR Full Access
Full archival runs (up to the moving wall) of over 2800 journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, some dating as far back as the 1600s. Includes JSTOR Archive Journal Collections: Arts & Sciences 1-15, Business IV, Hebrew Journals, Ireland, Life Sciences, Lives of Literature, Public Health Journals, Security Studies, & Sustainability; Primary Source Collections: 19th Century British Pamphlets, World Heritage Sites: Africa, Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa, & Global Plants. Relevant to all majors.
PubMed Central
Archive of peer-reviewed scientific literature in biomedical and life sciences, providing open access to high-quality research articles.
Project MUSE Standard Collection
Access to full-text, peer-reviewed journals in the humanities and social sciences, with open-access content available. Relevant to Critical and Cultural Studies, Art History, and Writing.
Taylor & Francis eBooks
Over 4000 eBooks across disciplines. Includes both licensed and open access or free ebooks.
Feminist Art Theses
Provides access to MA and PhD research on contemporary women artists and feminist art, compiled from national archives and university repositories worldwide. Relevant to Fine Arts, Art History, and Critical and Cultural Studies.
LGBTQ+ Source
Provides scholarly and popular LGBTQ+ publications, primary sources, and a thesaurus with 9,000+ LGBTQ+ terms.

Technical textbooks and video tutorials or courses on how to do things

LinkedIn Learning
Online courses in various subjects for professional and academic skill-building. Useful for researchers and students across all disciplines.
O'Reilly for Higher Education Online Books
Provides digital access to 21,000+ books and tutorials on technology, business, and design, including For Dummies, O’Reilly, and Adobe Press. Relevant to Interaction Design, Industrial Design, and Communication Design.