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Architecture & Design

This guide is intended to help you get started with your architecture & design research.

Selected Library of Congress Call Numbers

Architecture and Design books, exhibition catalogues, periodicals, theses, databases, image collections, videos, and other materials in print or electronic formats held in the U of C Libraries are usually listed in the Library Catalogue.

Guide to Taylor Family Digital Library Locations

AC - Collections, Series, Collected Works (Includes theses)
BH  - Aesthetics
GN - Anthropology (Includes Material Culture)
HD - Economic History (Includes advertising, brand name products)
HF - Commerce
HT - Cities, Communities, Races (Includes city and regional planning)
N    - Visual Arts in General (Includes books on both art and architecture)
NA  - Architecture
NC  - Illustration, Design, Drawing (Includes graphic arts, architectural drawing)
NK  - DecorativeArts, Applied Arts (Includes Design: Industrial, Interior, Furniture)
NX  - Arts in General (Includes Literature, Music, and the Visual Arts)
SB  -  Plant Culture (Includes Landscape Architecture)
T   - General Technology (Includes design management)
TA - General Engineering, General Civil Engineering

  • TA166 for ergonomics
  • TA400s for materials such as wood
  • TA600s for structures

TH  - Building Construction
TJ  -  Energy (Includes energy as applied to buildings, such as solar energy)
TK -  Electrical Engineering (Includes Architectural Lighting)
TL - Motor Vehicles, Aeronautics (and design of)
TP - Chemical Technology (Includes Plastics)
TS - Manufactures (Includes product design/designers)

Bibliographies

Used to identify additional books and other information sources on your topic. 

May be identified by searching for bibliography and [your subject] in the Library Catalogue.

E.g.    Architecture Series - part of Vance Bibliographies
          NA 1 .V25  Nos. A1-A2366, 1978-1990 TFDL HDL (indexed at www.archinform.net and in WorldCat)

E.g. 2  Simmins, Geoffrey, comp. Bibliography of Canadian Architecture.
          NA 745 .S55 1992 TFDL HDL

Books identified which are not available at the University of Calgary can be requested through Interlibrary Loans

E-Book Collections (UofC only)

Not all of the titles in our e-book collections have been catalogued on the Library Catalogue.  However, for those that have been, use standard library searches on author, title, subject, etc. to find e-books of interest. The Library Catalogue will link to the full text. 

Note that you can also search for your topic in the full text of all the books in these e-book collections from within the individual online resource but you cannot search the full text of the books from within the Library Catalogue.

Academic Complete (Ebrary)

  • Includes ~67,000 titles on many subjects, including 400 on Architecture (NA), 46 on Landscape Architecture, and ~200 on Building Construction (TH).
  • Subject searches on, e.g. architecture, industrial design, new products, product life cycle, design, ergonomics, household appliances, manufacturing processes, technological innovation, etc. retrieve relevant documents.
  • Includes the Canadian Publishers Collection which is a good source for e-books on Canadian architecture, e.g. search "architects OR architecture OR architectural OR buildings OR dwellings OR housing OR houses OR buildings" in Subject within this collection
  • These titles are catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue.
  • Direct export to  via My Settings on top bar to right

Cambridge Histories Online

  • Articles on architecture are included in many of the history volumes.   Articles relevant to industrial design are also included although the term "industrial design" may not be used
  • Search keywords of interest to retrieve articles of interest
  • These titles are catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue

Early English Books Online (EEBO)

  • >125,000 titles on all subjects published mostly in England from ~1475-1700
  • All in full digital facsimile from the Early English Books microfilm collection
  • These titles are catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue.
  • Direct export to  from Marked List / Download Records.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)

  • Includes >180,000 titles published in the 1700's, including 5,000 Fine Arts titles, 320 retrieved by searching architect* in titles and over 1,000 titles retrieved executing the same search in full text. The term "Industrial design"  was not yet in existence however one may find useful information on the history of material culture and objects, e.g. try searching "chair or chairs" limited to subject area Fine Arts and to Illustration.
  • May limit items retrieved to titles with illustrations and/or plans.
  • These titles are catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue.
  • Direct export to  from Marked List / Generate a Citation

Knovel Library: Engineering, Life Sciences & Chemistry collections

  • Combines essential and authoritative reference books (such as handbooks) and databases from more than 30 Sci-Tech publishers and professional societies including, McGraw Hill, John Wiley, Elsevier, Springer, Industrial Press, American Institute of Chemical Engineers and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.  
  • Includes reference works on civil engineering; construction materials; building & energy efficiency; HVAC; ASHRAE; human factors; ergonomics; robotics; materials, e.g. wood, plastics, and such.
  • Choose to search My Subscription rather than All Content (top left) for full text UofC subscribes to

Netlibrary (via Ebscohost)

  • Includes >6,000 titles on many subjects, including 30 on architecture and 188 UofC Press e-books, four of which are inventories of the Canadian Architectural Archives collections.
  • These titles are catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue.
  • Direct export to  after saving to Folder, then Export

Oxford Scholarship Online

  • Offers over 2000 e-books published by Oxford University Press on many subjects however philosophy is a major focus which includes Aesthetics.
  • Searching the full text, one will find information on sacred spaces, church architecture, temples...
  • These titles are catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue

Past Masters

  • Encompasses the largest collection of full-text electronic editions of key philosophers writing on such topics as aesthetics as well as letters and complete works of a wide range of writers including Aristotle, Austen, Coleridge, Darwin, Gladstone, Swift and Yeats..

SpringerLink Ebooks

  • Offers over 27,000 books and reference works with a technical focus
  • Includes >200 books on Architecture and Design, including architectural history, architects, building types, building materials, construction, landscape architecture, interior architecture, manufacturing, engineering design, urbanism, cities, and arts
  • All of these books may not be catalogued individually in the Library Catalogue