USEFUL LINKS

Slide Library Home Page

Fine Arts Library

School of Fine Arts

Department of the History of Art

Indiana University Art Museum

IUB Libraries Homepage

IU Digital Library Program

• The DIDO Image Bank can only be searched by two items at a time. Therefore, putting in three separate elements will result in an unsuccessful search. The code line (see more below) is considered one item, and each part of an artist's name is also an item. So use only one part of a name when combining a search with the code line.

• You can do simple Boolean searches in the Image Bank. To form an AND query, simply link two terms with an "and". To form an OR query, simply list two terms.

• The DIDO Image Bank searches an online database consisting of fourteen fields and returns the information found in the first eight of them along with the associated image. The additional fields allow for subject access, but many of these are still not completed.

• Once you have performed an initial query, you can narrow down the list by clicking on the boxes located left of the images and then saving this group (there is a button provided) . You can click on a thumbnail at any time to see a larger version of the image.

• Because the search engine looks for character strings, if you put in "van Gogh" it will look for everything with the letters "van" as well as "Gogh". This will result in a huge list of mostly unrelated images. It is better to search using only "Gogh" to return images by van Gogh.

• Similarly, putting in "Roman" might not return all available Roman images because the word "Roman" may not appear in any of the fields in its full form. But putting in just "rom" will return all images that have the words "from" or "romanesque" in a field.

• So, to search effectively, you must find the middle ground between these two approaches. Be as specific as possible, but don't reduce the word strings to such a small amount that they would likely appear in other common words.

• One of the best ways to search this database for images of a common type is to search the code line associated with each image. All code lines have three basic elements: the time period, the media and the country. For example, van Gogh's code line is 19.PTG.NETH and Roman architecture's code line is ANC.ROM.ARCH.

  • Time periods are represented by ANC for ancient, MED for Medieval, RB for Renaissance/Baroque and 18, 19, 20 and 21 for these centuries.

  • Media components of a code line can include : SCULPT for sculpture, ARCH for architecture, MSS for manuscripts and PRINT for graphic media. Photography and our new 21st Century division use only the PHOTO or 21 codes without country or time period components. There are many other media codes. Please see the Slide Library for additional information.

  • The country might also be abbreviated. A few examples include: US for United States, CZECH for Czechoslovakia and SWITZ for Switzerland.

• Perform a few sample searches first to see what the results are, and what the fields look like. Then, with practice, you will be able to search much more effectively.