Shared Documents - DatabasesSubjectLiterature

Databases and Websites in Literature

Citation Guides - correct format for proper documentation
Databases - scholarly materials, citation indexes and full text
E Books - use free electronic texts when you can't find the printed book
Quick Reference - quality, credible, and timely reference resources -mostly all are free
Specialized Search Engines - gateway sites, specialized search engines, Web portals
Web Directories - subject guides to selective and carefully chosen sites on the Web
Web Resources - selected list of free sites

Web Search in a Nutshell - getting started in library research

Subscription Databases Available Only to the WSU Community:

M L A International Bibliography. From ProQuest. A citation subject index for books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. The electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1925 and contains over 1.7 million citations from more than 4,400 periodicals. While the majority of records are from English-language publications, at least sixty other languages are represented including French, Spanish, German, Russian, etc.
New! Literature Resource Center - from Gale Cengage. Biographies, bibliographies and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline in a single, searchable database. Also contains full text access to the Twayne Author series. In-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most studied authors. Full text from Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Also has 258 full text journals.
Essay and General Literature Index - This unique reference offers precise access to nearly 86,000 essays contained in some 7,000 anthologies and collections—a wealth of information that might be otherwise hidden away on your library's shelves. Spanning 1985 to present, coverage is across the entire range of the humanities and social sciences, including art history, political science, and history to criticism of literary works, drama, and film.
Gale Virtual Reference Library. Available through InfoTrac Web (Gale Group). Contains full text of standard reference works previously only found in print on library shelves: Funded by the Massachusetts Regional Library System.

Contemporary Novelists - 7th ed. (2001) Contains biographical/critical essays on the most important living novelists writing in English worldwide.
Contemporary Poets 7th ed. (2001) 789 of the world's most important contemporary English-language poets, including 120 new to this edition. Biographical information plus each entry includes a signed critical essay covering each poet's career and works, written by an expert in the field.

Contemporary Authors.
Profiles of contemporary writers worldwide Vols. 1-249. (Gale, 1962-2007).Updated profiles on prominent contemporary writers Vols. 1-155. (Gale, 1980-2007) through the new revision Series. Search is through the Biography Resource Center which also combines over 432,000 biographies from over 980 volumes of 135 respected Gale sources such as Encyclopedia of World Biography (26 vols.), Newsmakers, Dictionary of American Biography (20 vols.) and the Writers Directory. Funded by the Massachusetts Regional Library System.

More Biographical Resources

Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. an extensive full text collection of more than 11,000 critical essays on contemporary authors. Each entry contains a biographical/critical introduction, a list of principal works, critical essays, and sources for further study. Updated monthly; users can search by author name, title of work, nationality, subject/genre, ethnicity, critic name, and more. Funded by the Massachusetts Regional Library System.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) - updated quarterly with new words. Contains over half a million entries with multiple corollary word forms, extensive etymology, date of first recorded use of a word, usage and status of a word. The OED is the accepted authority of international English.
Oxford Reference Online. From one of the world's most respected reference publishers, the Premium collection brings together 170 well-known and trusted sources such as the complete Dictionaries series, Oxford Companion (to American Literature and English Literature) plus the complete Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Specialized subject sources in foreign languages, mythology, bilingual dictionaries, and more.
Academic One File has good general coverage of popular topics and many full text articles for literary criticism. Indexes peer-reviewed, full text articles available in HTML or PDF formats from the world's leading journals and reference sources. Funded by the Massachusetts Regional Library System.
Academic Search Complete Good general coverage of popular topics and many full text articles for literary criticism. Indexes peer-reviewed, full text articles available in HTML or PDF formats from the world's leading journals and reference sources.
Book Index with Reviews - access to over 4 million book titles as well as close to 700,000 music and DVD/video titles, updated constantly. Easy to use; generally short reviews.

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Other Web Resources - selective list of free sites

American Authors - organizes links to a wealth of information on American authors. Includes pictures of the author, biographical information, bibliographies and links to related websites. An added feature to this site are literary crossword puzzles, games and quizzes.
Arts & Humanities Hub - from Intute, U.K. Access to 21,000 of the best free Web resources for education and research, selected and evaluated by a network of subject specialists. Search by keyword or browse topics.
Labyrinth - resources for anything medieval. Search in categories from coins to Old Norse
Literary Criticism - from the Internet Public Library. Sections include Best Starting Places, Starting Places for Particular Time Periods, and sites for specific Authors. These sites can be quite helpful for those new to finding quality literary criticism on the Internet.
Literary Index - Internet Resources in Literature, maintained by Chris Flack of Vanderbilt University. Provides both an overview and a review of the more significant collections of Internet literary resources of interest to scholars, students, and lovers of literature.
Luminarium - focuses on English literature of the Middle English, Renaissance, and 17th-Century periods with information on writers, works, and background information on the culture and history of the period.
Online Literary Resources on the Net - A collection of links to sites with English and American literature, limited to collections of information useful for academic research. From Jack Lynch at Rutgers University - a top 5% of the Web site.
Perspectives in American Literature - a research and reference guide for American literature, early American to contemporary. Organized by time periods and themes. Maintained by Paul Reuben at Cal State.
Poetry Online - First line or title poem index; timeline, criticism, glossary.
Romantic Chronology - Chronology of 17th through 19th century that links to sites and full-text documents.
Romantic Circles - Scholarly articles, texts and discussion of Romantic-period literature and culture.

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Search Engines

These are "gateway" sites: they don't have literary information, but link you to sites that do. Less exciting than PBS TV but more practical.

Voice of the Shuttle - Literature in English. Thousands of links to electronic texts, websites; sections devoted to American Literature, Victorian literature, Modern American and British literature, minorities literature, and more. From the Univ. of California, Santa Barbara.
Victorian Web - Social matters, gender, texts, authors, philosophy and much more.

Web Directories

There are excellent subject directories on the web. that can point you to the best online resources in specific areas world literatures. These human guides to the Internet are a great way to find the best of the Web, and often find sites that can't be accessed by search engines. The best ones to use for scholarly material are:

IPL2 - Carefully chosen links to thousands of the best Websites for research information. You can search sections divided by Resources by Subject, Newspapers and Magazines, or Special Collections Created by the IPL2 – or simply enter your topic in the search box. Site formed by the Jan. 2010 merger of the Internet Public Library [IPL] and Librarians Internet Index [LII].
InfoMine - Virtual library of scholarly Internet resources. Features well organized access; notable for its collection of annotated and indexed links.
Academic Info - gateway to freely available academic resources on the web, with annotated entries. General links, related topics, in the news sections.

More subject directories on the web

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