Where does research begin? There are many options. Here are some starting points.
These provide brief, general information about a location, concept, style, or designer.
Encyclopedia of Gardens. 3 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001 .
LOCATION: Agriculture Library - Reference (Agr Ref SB 465 .e53x 2001)
Oxford Companion to the Garden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
LOCATION: Agriculture Library - Reference (Agr Ref SB 450.95 .O94 2006)
A History of Garden Art. 2 vols. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1966 (reprint, 1928 ed.)
LOCATION: Morris Library (SB 451 .G62 1966)
Wikipedia
This free encyclopedia can be very useful starting point for basic research. Many of the gardens you are studying have articles in Wikipedia, including links to related articles, related websites, images, and media.
TIP: In these general reference resources, you will sometimes find references to items not owned by the University of Delaware Library. You can use WorldCat to locate and verify these items. You can then request the loan of a book or a copy of an article on interlibrary loan.
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DELCAT is the online catalog of the University of Delaware Library. Use DELCAT to locate books, journals, microforms, and non-print materials (such as videos). DELCAT may be searched by author, title, subject, or keyword.
TIP: Using the truncation symbol (*) is a useful feature in DELCAT and other databases. For example, type garden* to find garden, gardens, gardening, gardener, gardeners, etc.
Look in DELCAT under the name of the garden or designer. Check the bibliography at the back of each book for leads to other writings about this garden or designer.
Examples:
Keyword(s) anywhere: winterthur estate
Keyword(s) anywhere: marian coffin
Subject begins with ...: Farrand, Beatrix
Keyword(s) anywhere: Beatrix Farrand
Search DELCAT under the subject (e.g. English gardens, urban landscape architecture, garden structures, urban parks, public gardens). Check the index in the back of each book to see if a specific site or designer is discussed. Check the bibliography at the back of each book for leads to other writings about this topic.
Examples:
Subject begins with ...: Gardens, American
Subject begins with ...: Gardens -- United States
Keyword(s) anywhere: urban park*
Keyword(s) anywhere: garden structures
WorldCat Local encompasses the holdings of over 10,000 libraries around the world including the University of Delaware Library. WorldCat Local is especially useful when you don't find what you need in DELCAT or when you need more than you found in DELCAT.
Example:
Search: samuel homsey
To locate articles published in periodicals (i.e., journals, magazines), you must first use databases or periodical indexes to obtain a citation. Some databases provide links to the full text of some articles; other databases include only citations (or citations and abstracts).
Art Abstracts/Art Index Retrospective 
Bibliographic database covering the periodical literature in art history and related subjects from 1929-present.
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
The Avery Index indexes journals on architecture and design, city planning, historic preservation, including landscape history and design. Coverage is 1741-present.
AGRICOLA (Agricultural Online Access)
Citations to the agricultural literature acquired by the National Agricultural Library. Includes journal articles, monographs, patents, technical reports, and more.
TIP: Get It! is a linking mechanism that leads researchers from journal article citation to the full text of that article. Databases which include Article Express are indicated by the Get It! icon ().
DELCAT
The University of Delaware Library subscribes to many journals either in paper copies or online versions or, sometimes, both. To locate a journal, search for the title of the journal in DELCAT. If the Library has the journal, DELCAT will tell you which years are owned and the location of the journal (the call number for the paper copies and the URL for the online version).
Electronic Journals
This is an easy way to determine whether a journal is available in an online version. From this page, you can browse by title, browse by subject, and search by keyword.
Images, which are useful for comparison, can be found online as well as in the book and periodical resources mentioned above.
ARTstor
More than 1,000,000 digital images of visual material from different cultures and disciplines.
Digital Image Collections
Browse a list of links to extensive digital archives of photographic, motion picture, and other multimedia files available on the Internet.
Google, Google Images, Google Scholar
Searching these Google products will yield some excellent resources on gardens, landscapes, and designers. Most of the gardens you are studying have websites which include history, images, plans, etc.
Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS)
One aspect of the National Park Service's Heritage Documentation Programs.
English Heritage: Historic Parks and Gardens
The British equivalent of the U.S.'s HALS program.
RefWorks
A Web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to save and organize references from various sources and create bibliographies in many formats.
Citation Styles: MLA (Modern Language Association)
A guide to the many citation styles (Chicago, MLA, Turabian, etc.) which are used by students and researchers.
Citation Styles
A guide to the many citation styles (Chicago, MLA, Turabian, etc.) which are used by students and researchers.
How to Cite Electronic Sources
From the Library of Congress.
