Photographies - new issue

The latest issue of Photographies is available online now.  When trying to access the journal outside of the university, select 'Sign in,' then 'Sign in via shibboleth,' and then 'University of Westminster.'

The following articles are included:

Globalisation and the Art Photography of Joel Sternfeld
Antigoni Memou

A Meditation on Poetry and Photography
Marnie McInnes

Imagining the Image: Photography, psychoanalysis and the affects of latency
Ignaz Cassar

“Venturing Out on a Ledge to Get a Certain Picture”: The “authentic” spaces of Alvin Langdon Coburn's Grand Canyon
Jordan Bear

Madonnas of Warfare, Angels of Poverty: Cutting through press photographs
Marta Zarzycka

Orientalizing the Bayadère/Fabricating Mata Hari
Romita Ray

Third Text - new issue

The new issue of Third Text is now available online from the link below.  The journal is a highly regarded academic publication, which focuses on art practices including art, photography and film.  It looks specifically at work that may be, "marginalised through racial, gender, religious and cultural differences".  For more about the journal read the aims and scope.

 Third Text - Volume 26, Issue 2

Third Text is indexed in the following databases: ARTbibliographies Modern; British Humanities Index; Thomson Reuters’ Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Magazines and journals for photography - new subscriptions

It is really great to be able to announce that the library has recently taken out two new subscriptions in support of photography - foam and Photography and Culture.

The fantastic foam magazine is now available in the library in print.  It was an obvious choice, since I have had students approaching me in the library to ask whether we could get it, and it was well-supported by academic staff.  I am overjoyed to be able to add this to our magazine collection.

Open publication - Free publishing - More foam

Photography & Culture is available online.  It was also a clear favourite with academic staff, and as one of the few peer-reviewed academic journals that focus specifically on photography, I think it is essential for our collection.  Like other similar publications such as History of Photography and Photographies each issue contains several academic research papers, supplemented by reviews of recent books and exhibitions.

Old Periodicals Online

An advert in this 1910 The British Journal Photographic Almanac declares the Regent Street Polytechnic - a former incarnation of the University of Westminster - as having, "The first, largest and most successful school of photography in the world."  You will find it here.



This e-copy resides on the Internet Archive. 

Thanks to Jo Barker for sending me the link to the photography periodicals section of The Digital Book Index.  There are also links to early copies of Photograms of the year (copies of which are also in the library), which are gems! (see here for example). And there are other sections to explore: the Photography Collections page looks particularly interesting.

Photography after conceptual art

There is a great new book due to be published by Wiley this month called Photography after conceptual art.  It is edited by Diarmuid Costello and Margaret Iversen and amongst the artists covered are Ed Ruscha, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Douglas Huebler, Mel Bochner, Sherrie Levine, Roni Horn, Thomas Demand, and Jeff Wall.   It sounds like a who's who of key photographers, right?

Well, why wait for the book.  All the essays included were previously published in a special issue of the journal Art History, which is available online (volume 32, issue 5).

The journal Art History is indexed by Art Full Text and Art Bibliographies Modern (the key visual arts databases), as well as the British Humanities Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index.  Five issues a year are published.

Art Full Text - online introduction

One of the databases searched within Library Search 'Articles & more' is Art Full Text.  You don't have to access the 'native' interface, but there are a few features that you might find useful, so I have embedded an online presentation on Art Full Text below. 

It is not the most exciting presentation in the world, but it does provide a useful summary of some of the features:

Coverage; Subject headings; Images of art works; Search fields; Biographical data; Advanced search menu; Email and RSS alerts; Saving articles; Saving searches; Translation of articles; Conversion to audio / saving audio files; Automated referencing



To access the native interface, go to Library Search and search for 'art full text' within the 'Books, journals & more' tab.  You can also try this with 'art bibliographies modern.'

NB: if you are asked for a username and password, ignore and look for 'Shibboleth access via UK federation'

If you have any questions about Art Full Text, please contact me.

The girl in the picture

There is an article in the most recent TATEetc on the forthcoming exhibition, ‘Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera,’ entitled, ‘What are you looking at?’

In this article there is an un-credited picture of Vietnamese children fleeing the village of Trang Bang, after it had been napalmed by South Vietnamese government planes. Unlike the similar and famous image by Nick Ut, this picture also shows the children being filmed and photographed by journalists. In the context of this upcoming exhibition, the difference between the two pictures is striking.

Kim Phúc – one of the children in the pictures - appears on Radio 4 next week in an episode of 'It’s My Story'.  In this programme – according to the radio 4 website - she explains how “Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph has helped and haunted her in equal measure.”

Today, ITN footage of the bombing and of Kim Phúc and others fleeing the village can be viewed on YouTube.

Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera opens at Tate Modern on the 28th May

It’s My Story: The girl in the picture will be broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday 18th May at 4pm

A version of the article 'What are you looking at' (without the photograph referred to above) is available on the TATEetc website.

Further reading

Hariman, J. and Lucaites, J. L. (2007). No caption needed: iconic photographs, public culture, and liberal democracy [Chapter 6 ‘Trauma and Public Memory: Accidental Napalm’]. University of Chicago Press.

Google Reader - for academics

RSS readers such as Google Reader are great for keeping up to date with blogs and news sites,  but did you know:

1. Most academic journals have feeds for new issues.

2. Many journal databases allow you to create a feed for new content matching a defined search (e.g. keywords, author, citation - keep updated on who is citing you).

3. You can share posts you like with colleagues or students (and the world), with one click.  See my shared items for example.

4. Once you start using RSS, it is addictive!

View the first post of this blog for a quick overview of RSS and Google Reader or ask your librarian for more information.

LIFE available on Google Books

I often use Google Books to preview books that I am interested in, such as David Campany's Photography and cinema below.

However, there is also a lot of material available in full.  For example, I recently found copies of Life magazine ("the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century") from 1953-72 [UPDATE - NOW AVAILABLE FROM 1936].

Available here: http://books.google.co.uk/books/serial/ISSN:00243019


 

Update

Issues of LIFE are now available from November 1936

The New York Times film reviews, 1913-1968

"For bones are being crushed with cold abandon, teeth are being callously kicked in and shocks are being blandly detonated at close and regular intervals on the Paramount screen.  Also an air of deepening mystery overhangs this tempestuous tale which shall render it none the less intriguing to those lovers of the brutal and bizarre."

So runs Bosley Crowthers review of 'The Blue Dahlia' in volume two of The New York Times film reviews, 1913-1968 available on the main shelves of the library at 791.4375 NEW (p. 2115).  I'm sure there are a few hours entertainment in these six volumes for the avid film buff.

For all reviews after 1960 and selected reviews prior to that (not for 'The Blue Dahlia' though - you'll have to come into the library for that) register for free online at: http://movies.nytimes.com/ref/movies/reviews/index.html

Screen online - video clips and full length films

I'm reading Alan Bennett currently for a book group and found clips from many of his TV plays on Screen Online, produced by the British Film Institute.  There are a huge number of other clips from other British films and television productions on there too - for example 'Great Expectations' (1946), 'Trainspotting' (1996) and 'The Office' (2001-2003).

There are also some full-length films such as Karel Reisz's 'We Are the Lambeth Boys' (1959) and Shane Meadows' short film 'Where's the money Ronnie!' (1996).

You can search Screen Online for your favourite British director, actor or film etc or browse for films grouped by genre, theme, place or decade.  There are also 'tours' of themes such as 'Cinematography,' 'Britishness,' 'the British sense of humour' and 'writing short films.'

It is a wonderful resource for film students or for anyone interested in film!

Much of the text on Screen Online is available to anyone on the Internet, but you have to be within a school, university or public library to view the clips.

Journal in focus – History of Photography

Published by Routledge four times a year, History of Photography is an academic peer reviewed journal with an international remit. It is available in printed form in the library, or electronically via ‘Informaworld’ (where you can set up an alert for new issues).

The current issue (February 2010) includes articles on ‘Atget, Benjamin and Surrealism,’ ‘The urban photography of Man Ray,’ ‘Weegee’s Jewishness,’ and ‘Cindy Sherman’s untitled film stills.’

This issue also has a review of selected books on surrealism and a review of two books looking at the relationship between cinema and photography, one of which is David Campany’s book Photography and Cinema (available in the library of course).

You can search across issues on Infomaworld, but History of Photography is also indexed on several key indexes, including Art Bibliographies Modern; British Humanities Index; and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Plus

FIAF covers over 350 titles and now comes with over 45 titles available with full-text.  Titles available in full-text include key publications such as Cineaste, Cinema Journal, Film Comment, Film Criticism and Film Quarterly.

A user guide, online demonstration, and complete list of titles available in full-text are available from the FIAF Information Resources page.

Access to the database is via InfoLinX.