When researching guest speakers, remember the research question examples provided to you by your instructor:
You can also look to professional job hunting sites like Ask a Manager that provide example informational interview questions. And you can think about other research prompts that you might use to analyze a photo when looking at their work:
Search for an artist website and links to any social media accounts. Check for:
Along with artist websites, look for artist interviews (written or recorded) or anything where the artist's voice is directly incorporated.
You can also search for museum/gallery sites they may have information on past or current exhibitions, interviews, commentary and more.
Books, journal articles, and encyclopedias can be used to find information for more well-established photographers. Think Stan Douglas, Jeff Wall, etc. There likely won't be library resources on most local photographers but you can think more broadly and search them for resources related to the photographer's:
Specialized Encyclopedias
A great place to start research and a great alternative to sites that come up most often on Google like Wikipedia, Art in Context and Art Story. Specialized encyclopedias give the same kind of overviews as these sites but are written by experts from a scholarly perspective.
Search Grove Art Online or the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. You can search for individual artist names, names of artworks, and broader concepts/movements/materials (ex. Public Art).
Books
Books are great sources of in depth information written by experts. Similar to encyclopedias, you can search for books using an artist's name, names of artworks, and broader concepts. Because books take a while to be written and published, you may not find books on more current artists. You can then search for related art movements that the artist is a part of or related topics instead (ex. fashion photography).
You can search via the Books and Media search (also called the library catalogue). Your search terms will appear within the table of contents of the book record.
Articles
You can search for periodical (magazine and newspaper) and scholarly articles via the Quick Topic Search (the main search box on the library's home page).
Scholarly journal articles, also known as peer-reviewed or academic articles, are articles in which researchers report their research findings, critical analyses, and new ideas. These articles have been evaluated and critiqued by other researchers and experts in the same field before they are published.
Journal articles tend to be on very specific aspects of a topic. They also cover the latest research and so you may have better luck find journal articles on a new or emerging artist/topic than books or encyclopedia entries.
You can search for articles using the Quick Topic Search above. However, the Quick Topic Search does not cover all of Langara's databases. Additionally, it is highly multidisciplinary, so it may also return a number of irrelevant results. Sometimes, it may be necessary for you to search in individual scholarly databases to find the most relevant research.
Suggested databases for art-related topics include: Art Full Text, JSTOR, and Academic Search Complete.
If you need help determining whether a resource is appropriate for your research, think about the Five W's:
You can learn more about the Five W's in the video series Evaluating Your Sources.