Background Information
Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Other Reference Sources
Encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference sources are a great way to get started and to find background information on your topic from various perspectives. If you want to search for a specific topic or concept across various disciplines to get different perspectives try the following online collection of reference books.
For example: Try a search on your library genre in each of the reference databases below to see what literary scholars are writing about your genre which will spark your ideas and generate more keywords that you can use to search other databases.
- Credo ReferenceIncludes key reference resources like The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature and The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English.
- Oxford Reference OnlineIncludes key reference resources for studying literature, such as The Oxford Companion to English Literature and The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.
- Gale Virtual Reference LibraryUse advanced search and scroll down to select subject area "literature" before you search - it will make sure your results will be more relevant to the study of literature.
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Finding Secondary Sources and Scholarship
To find scholarly books and articles about an author or original text, start with some of these resources:
- MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new windowIndexes scholarly research published in journal articles, books, articles in books, and dissertations in the fields of modern languages and their literatures, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film. Includes the full text of more than 1,000 journals in these fields. Also includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals. 1926 - present.
- Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowProvides the full text of literary criticism and reviews, biographies, original works of literature, multimedia resources, and links to selected web resources on authors and their works. Covers 130,000 authors from all times and places. Updated continually.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database providing access to more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. It also offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals. Covers a wide range of academic topics including business, education, social sciences, humanities, science, & engineering. Coverage varies, with some publications going back to 1911.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowUse Google Scholar to discover scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Some content will be freely available on the web; most will only be accessible by subscription. This restricted link allows current University students, faculty, and staff to access the full text of licensed resources to which the University subscribes. Click on the "Find it @ SCU" links to see if the University has the article through its institutional database and e-journal subscriptions.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowProvides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics, biology, and other fields of the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title. Updated monthly.
- Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) This link opens in a new windowIndex to monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations published anywhere in the world on English language and literature topics. 1920-present.
- America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new windowThis database covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. With selective indexing for 1,700 journals from 1964 to the present, this database also provides full-text coverage of more than 196 journals and more than 92 books.
Finding Primary Sources
To find original texts, such as works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, news sources, etc, start with some of these resources:
- OSCAR - SCU Library Catalog This link opens in a new windowSearch the holdings of the Santa Clara University Library
- OneSearchSearch the library catalog plus the content of many library databases and electronic journals at once.
- APS OnlineA collection of full-text periodicals and primary source materials related to the American experience from the colonial days to 1900.
- Google BooksIncludes complete, scanned copies of hundreds of thousands of books that are out of copyright (i.e. published before 1923).
- Internet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that provides permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital format. It covers all time periods and is useful for finding digitized versions of Colonial and early American publications.
- Early American Imprints (also known as: America's Historical Imprints)A full-text collection of over 75,000 books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America from 1639 to 1819.
- Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineIncludes the full text of legal documents (and only legal documents) listed in the English Short Title Catalogue.
- English Short Title CatalogLists over 460,000 items published between 1473 and 1800 published mainly in the British Isles and North America. SCU has access to the full-text of just the legal documents (i.e. not full access to everything) via Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
- LINK+The LINK+ catalog: Use this to find and request books and other materials from libraries across California to be delivered to you here at Santa Clara.
- WorldCatA combined library catalog for North American (and some European) libraries: Use this to find records for millions of books and other materials in libraries worldwide, representing 400 languages.