It is out there . . . but where? The road to online research in art history (the Oxford experience)

Abstract

Oxford University’s Learning Technologies Group (LTG) runs workshops at the beginning of every academic year for each new intake of art history graduates. They have evolved over a number of years into a method both of informing students about what is available online in art history, and a means of offering them a strategy for conducting online research. It is notoriously difficult to get students to attend anything smacking of IT and its related subjects. As far as they are concerned, IT is already in their blood, and Google is the main tool for finding the most useful information on any subject. It is certainly difficult to compete with Google – I use it in my work and leisure frequently! However, getting two million hits on any one search and trying to determine who is behind the information found should be cause for serious concern, especially when conducting academic research.