Exhibition catalogues

This video will demonstrate how to find exhibition catalogues in the library. 

When you visit an exhibition, you probably also spend time browsing in the gallery shop & wondering if you want to buy an accompanying exhibition catalogue.  

Exhibition catalogues can be very useful tool for research.  For example, they might document how an artist has worked, including commentary written by the artist as well essays written by art critics and curators or they might explore a particular theme or topic in great detail.  They often contain images which you might not find elsewhere, for example, art works borrowed from private collections especially for that exhibition. 

MMU library buys copies of major UK and international exhibitions. You might want to browse our large collection of exhibition catalogues.  These are located on the first floor west wing of the All Saints library at the end of the book sequence. These are indicated by the black shelf labels. They are organised using the same shelf locations as the books you can borrow.  For example, 759 represents books on painting.  On the book you will see an E before the shelf location.   

Please note the collection is for reference use in the library only.  Also, some catalogues are more like pamphlets than books and can be found in the blue pamphlet boxes due to their format.  

To see if we have a particular exhibition catalogue you will need look on Library Search.  Library Search can be accessed via the library’s homepage 

Simply type in the name of exhibition to see if we have a copy of the exhibition catalogue.   

In this example I want to look for an exhibition of the artist Grayson Perry  

So, I just need to type the artist’s name followed by the word exhibition. 

If I wanted to make the search even more explicit, I can add quotation marks around the artists name and Library Search will look for that exact phrase.  You can then click to search. 

Library Search will then display relevant results. 

This will include books as well as articles which may review exhibitions on that artist.  You can limit your results just to books by choosing Book listed under Format. 

You can see brief details of the exhibition catalogue including its shelf location.  

To see further details about the book, click on the title. 

On this screen you can see the full details of the book.  This often includes a summary of the publication and possibly a content lists for the book. 

If you scroll further down you can check availability, this will list if we have more copies available.  For some major exhibitions we may also have a copy you can take out of the library. 

For more help and information, please ask a member of staff in the Library, visit the Library website or email us at library@mmu.ac.uk