Blueprint for Architectural Research: The Avery Index

Do you need to obtain architectural information? Do you need to find such material that is less than 20 years old, comes from a worldwide database that indexes over 1,000 journals, and covers topics on a broad continuum from architecture to city planning, archaeology, historic preservation and interior design?

Then, you might wish to point your Web browser to UB's Online Resources page (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/) and locate the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals in the first row of the "Subject-oriented Indexes" listing. If you are a member of the UB community, you may then proceed to make a Web connection to this architecture-intensive database.

Let's say you wanted to find all the citations to articles about Art Deco that have appeared since the late 1970s in Architectural Digest. Select "Advanced Search," click on "Keyword" in the first box and type "Art Deco" in the form space below. Next, click on "Journal" in the third box (by moving the side arrow down with your left mouse key) and type "Architectural Digest" in the form space below. Click on "Send" and discover at least 25 listings for articles about Art Deco styling in Manhattan, Montreal, Malibu and Paris, among other places.

Or, perhaps you wanted to explore the connection between famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Buffalo. Click on "Simple Search," indicate "Keyword," enter "Frank and Wright and Buffalo" in the form space, click on "Send" and you will locate at least 15 articles on this notable topic.

And, speaking of Frank Lloyd Wright and Buffalo, be sure to visit the University Archives' Web site for its current exhibit, "My Dear Mr. Wright." (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/archives/dear_wright/) This Web site, which accompanies the exhibit on display through Oct. 31 in the University Archives (420 Capen Hall, 645-2916), highlights the Archives' Frank Lloyd Wright-Darwin D. Martin Collection of manuscripts, letters, photographs and architectural drawings.

For assistance in connecting to the World Wide Web via UB computer accounts, contact the ASCIT Help Desk at 645-3542.

­Deborah Husted Koshinsky and Rick McRae, University Libraries