International Bibliography of Art (IBA)

The International Bibliography of Art (IBA) is a key resource for scholarly literature on western art, and is published exclusively by ProQuest. IBA is the successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA)---long recognized as the world's most comprehensive bibliography of scholarly writing about the history of western art.

International Bibliography of Art (IBA) comprises around 30,000 records created by the Getty Research Institute covering 2008-09, with new records created by ProQuest's in-house editorial teams going forward.

BHA VS IBA

BHA has indexing from 1973 to September 2008, covering publications up to 2007.

IBA starts with the December 2008 update. ProQuest has an exclusive license for 2008-2009 data, and has been adding approximately 18,000 new records per year since 2010, ensuring unbroken coverage of journals that were indexed in BHA and IBA prior to 2010. The initial data set created by the Getty Research Institute in 2008-2009 covers scholarship up to 2009, including retrospective records for material published in previous years, and in some cases the new ProQuest indexing will also cover retrospective years in order to fill gaps in coverage.

Read more about it in this article:

Rosenbaum, L. (2010, Apr 19). A biblio-file brouhaha. Wall Street Journal (Online) 

Backfile searching from 1973 to 2007 is available through the Getty Research Institute: go to the link below.

Editorial scope covers:

• European art from late antiquity to the present, American art from the colonial era to the present, and global art since 1945
• Visual arts: painting, sculpture, drawing, decorative and applied arts, museum studies and conservation, archaeology, folk art and material culture, classical studies, antiques, architectural history.

At least 500 core journals are included, with an emphasis on specialist and rare titles that are not covered by other indexes, plus detailed coverage of monographs, essay collections, conference proceedings and exhibition catalogues.

International in coverage, around 60% of the content is non-English language, principally German, French, Italian and Spanish. Contributors include indexers based at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Rome), Stockholm University and the libraries of the National Galleries of Canada and Finland.