Connect from Off-Campus
Most of the links on this page go to subscription sources that are accessible from any computer on campus. UCLA students, faculty, and staff can also access these sites from off-campus using either the Proxy Server (a simple setting in your browser) or the VPN Client (a program you install on your computer).
Computer Manuals and Reference Sources
The UCLA Library provides access to several large collections of online books and technical manuals, including through these first two sources:
- O'Reilly for Higher Education This link opens in a new window
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OHE includes more than 38K computer science, engineering, business book titles from 200+ publishers, as well as video, case studies, expert playlists, audio books, and more. Includes pre-publication titles published by O'Reilly. Titles are HTML only. Replaces the Safari Tech Books Online collection.
Note: Access with Single Sign On after choosing University of California, Los Angeles from the list of institutions. Access is limited to current students, staff, and faculty at UC campuses. No community use.
- SpringerLink This link opens in a new window
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Immense array of books, chapters, conference proceedings and journal articles in the social sciences and sciences, published by Springer-Verlag. After searching, unclick Preview Only Content, whose materials are not under UCLA subscription. Advanced search enabled at wheel icon to right of search.
Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture by Call Number: Arts Library ; QA76.76.D47 R42 2010ISBN: 9781568989372Date: 2010The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of artists whose primary medium is software. Algorithmic processes, harnessed through the medium of computer code, allow artists to generate increasingly complex visual forms that they otherwise might not have been able to imagine, let alone delineate. The newest volume in our Design Brief series Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture is a non-technical introduction to the history, theory, and practice of software in the arts.
Generative Design by Call Number: Arts Library ; N7433.8 .B6313 2018ISBN: 9781616897581Date: 2018Generative design, once known only to insiders as a revolutionary method of creating artwork, models, and animations with programmed algorithms, has in recent years become a popular tool for designers. By using simple languages such as JavaScript in p5.js, artists and makers can create everything from interactive typography and textiles to 3D-printed furniture to complex and elegant infographics.
Getting Started with 3D Printing by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781680453799Date: 2020The book includes fundamental topics such as a short history of 3D printing, the best hardware and software choices, hands-on CAD tutorial exercises, and examples of how to apply 3D printing to personal life, professional work, and new business opportunities. The second edition provides updated information and features exciting new chapters on troubleshooting your CAD and 3D print models. Also included are new visual guides and a new section for businesses.
Getting Started with P5. js by - This link opens in a new window
Call Number: Arts Library ; QA76.73.J39 M33 2015ISBN: 9781457186776Date: 2016Getting Started with p5.js contains techniques that can be applied to creating games, animations, and interfaces. p5.js is a new interpretation of Processing written in JavaScript that makes it easy to interact with HTML5 objects, including text, input, video, webcam, and sound.
Getting Started with Processing by - This link opens in a new window
Call Number: Arts Library ; QA76.73.P75 R43 2015ISBN: 9781457187087Date: 2015Processing opened up the world of programming to artists, designers, educators, and beginners. This short book gently introduces the core concepts of computer programming and working with Processing. Getting Started with Processing shows you how easy it is to make software and systems with interactive graphics.
Make: 3D Printing by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 1457182939Date: 2014With articles about techniques, freely available CAD packages, and comparisons of printers that are on the market, this book makes it easy to understand this complex and constantly-shifting topic. Based on articles and projects from MAKE's print and online publications, this book arms you with everything you need to know to understand the exciting but sometimes confusing world of 3D Printing.
Processing, Second Edition by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780262028288Date: 2014The visual arts are rapidly changing as media moves into the web, mobile devices, and architecture. When designers and artists learn the basics of writing software, they develop a new form of literacy that enables them to create new media for the present, and to imagine future media that are beyond the capacities of current software tools. This book introduces this new literacy by teaching computer programming within the context of the visual arts. It offers a comprehensive reference and text for Processing, an open-source programming language that can be used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and anyone who wants to program images, animation, and interactivity.
Use these reference books to provide an overview of your topic, define terms, and list the seminal authors and works in the field. You can find some reference works using the first four sources:
- Design Library - Bloomsbury This link opens in a new window
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The Bloomsbury Design Library gives comprehensive global coverage of the history, theory and practice of crafts and design, from prehistoric times to the present day. - Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
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Combines Grove Art Online, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, the Oxford Companion to Western Art, Benezit Dictionary of Artists, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Includes image partnerships with ARTstor, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Images for College Teaching, Art Resource, Artists Rights Society, and numerous international art galleries and artists. - Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
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Spans 25 different subject areas, bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias. UC subscription allows limited simultaneous users, so if you can't connect try again later.
- Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas This link opens in a new window
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Overview articles on American and world popular culture, past and present, are arranged by decade, beginning with 1900, and accompanied by supporting reference articles and media and documents.
The A-Z of Modern Design by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; TS171.4 .D8613 2006ISBN: 9781858943305Date: 2006This encyclopedia is the most comprehensive guide available to international product design of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It includes 350 entries on influential designers and studios and the most important design-led manufacturers worldwide, both past and present.
Arts in America: A Bibliography by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; * Z5961.U5 A77; YRL Stacks Oversize* ; * Z5961.U5 A77ISBN: 0874745780Date: 1980Includes excellent annotated bibliographies for design history research.
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; NK1165 .B59 2016ISBN: 9781472521576Date: 2016The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design provides a comprehensive guide to design, with entries on key topics in the history and theory of design, addressing a range of design forms including graphic, textile, furniture, metal, ceramic, fashion, stage and film, vehicle and product design, as well as national histories of design and key design movements. The Encyclopedia provides up-to-date peer reviewed coverage of the last 250 years of design history, with global coverage by leading international design scholars and design historians.
Contemporary Graphic Design by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; NC997 .C66 2007ISBN: 9783822852699Date: 2007This compendium showcases the extraordinary cutting-edge work of 100 of the world's most progressive graphic designers. Alongside the array of visually stunning and thought-provoking advertisements, CD covers, posters, packaging, websites, and corporate identities are texts by each designer expressing his or her individual approach to graphic design practice as well as personal insights into the motivations that lie behind the work.
Design Dictionary: Perspectives on Design Terminology by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9783764377397Date: 2007This dictionary provides a stimulating and categorial foundation for a serious international discourse on design. It is a book for everyone engaged with design in their education and career, or for those who simply have an interest and enjoyment of design and want to better understand it.
The Design Encyclopedia by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; NK1370 .B93 2004ISBN: 9780870700125Date: 2004The Museum of Modern Art Design Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive design reference guide to date. Compiled over the last 15 years by Mel Byars, in consultation with an international team of design experts, The Encyclopedia sets out to provide the factual framework of a discipline whose own historical accounting of itself is still relatively young.
Design of the 20th Century by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; NK1390 .F525 2015ISBN: 9783836541060Date: 2015From furniture to graphics, it's all here-the work of artists who have shaped and re-created the modern world with a dizzying variety of materials. This essential book is a comprehensive journey through the shapes and colors, forms and functions of design history in the 20th century.
The Graphic Design Reference and Specification Book by - This link opens in a new window
Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; Z118.5 .E83 2013ISBN: 1592538517Date: 2013Completely practical with only the most needed information, this valuable book provides designers with all the little details that can make or break a design. The Reference & Specification Book series from Rockport Publishers offers students and practicing professionals in a range of creative industries must-have information in their area of specialty in an up-to-date, concise handbook.
The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design Designers by Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; NC997 .L54 2003ISBN: 0500203539Date: 2003Revised and updated to include all aspects of graphic design from 1840 to the present day, this classic reference defines key movements, trends, styles and techniques, and covers an enormous range of graphic designers, typographers, illustrators, poster artists and printers.
Typography, Referenced by - This link opens in a new window
Call Number: Arts Library Reference ; Z250 .T985 2012ISBN: 1592537022Date: 2012Typography, Referenced is the single most comprehensive volume covering every aspect of typography that any design student, professional designer, or design aficionado needs to know today. It is the ultimate source of typographic information and inspiration, documenting and chronicling the full scope of essential typographic knowledge and design from the beginnings of moveable type to the present "golden age" of typography.
Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780760375167Date: 2023Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this essential design guide pairs clear explanations of every design concept with visual examples of the ideas applied in practice. From the Abbe Principle to the Zeigarnick Effect, every major design concept is defined and illustrated.
World History of Design by Call Number: Arts Library ; NK1175 .M37 2015ISBN: 9781472569288Date: 2015This is the definitive historical account of global design from prehistory to the end of the Second World War, by pre-eminent design scholar Victor Margolin. These two richly illustrated volumes contain over 850 images, with over 160 in full colour.
