Finding Literary Criticism in Periodicals
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowThe MLA International Bibliography is a comprehensive database for books, academic journals, dissertations and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to the 1920s.
- Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors from every age and literacy discipline through more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers.
- Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text This link opens in a new windowTool for film and television research with indexing and abstracts for more than 380 publications as well as full text for more than 120 journals, and 100 books. Includes Variety movie reviews from 1914 to the present and over 36,300 images from the MPTV Image Archive.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowScholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
Primary Source Databases Related to Literature
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new windowThis databases contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
- London low life : street culture, social reform and the Victorian underworld. This link opens in a new windowA digital collection bringing to life the teeming streets of Victorian London with many full colour maps, cartoons, sketches and a full set of the essential Tallis Street Views of London a unique resource for the study of London architecture and commerce.
- Middle English Compendium This link opens in a new windowAn electronic version of Middle English Dictionary (MED), a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse, and the "Corpus of Medieval English Prose and Texts."
- Perdita manuscripts: women writers, 1500-1700 This link opens in a new windowComplete facsimile images of over 230 manuscripts written or compiled by women living in the British Isles during the 16th and 17th centuries. Contents include account books, advice, culinary writing, meditation, travel writing, and verse.
- Punch Historical Archive 1841-1992 This link opens in a new windowFully searchable online archive of 19th and 20th century political and social history, including Almanacks and other special numbers, as well as, prefaces, epilogues, indexes and other specially produced material from the bound volumes.
- Theater in Video This link opens in a new windowContains more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video. Includes the BBC Shakespeare Series. (3 simultaneous users max.)
- Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new windowMedieval manuscripts from libraries around the world, dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries, with a focus on accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China.
Reference Databases
- Critical Survey of Long Fiction This link opens in a new windowThe Critical Survey series provides students and general readers with in-depth profiles of major authors in one of the major literary genres---in this case, long fiction (the novel, novella, and related long forms). While the profiled authors may have written in other genres as well, sometimes to great acclaim, the focus of this set is on their most important works of long fiction.
- Critical Survey of of Poetry: Cumulative Indexes This link opens in a new windowMaterial in the Critical Surveys of Poetry has been organized into five e-books by geography and essay type: American Poets; British, Irish, and Commonwealth Poets; European Poets; World Poets; and Topical Essays. The Cumulative Index covers all five subsets. Go to the Primo webpage to search for any one of the individual e-books.
- Magill's Literary Annuals This link opens in a new windowEvaluates 200 major examples of serious literature published during the previous calendar year. Covers works of interest to general readers.
Literature Database Comparisons
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MLA Bibliography |
Literature Resource Center |
JSTOR |
Project MUSE |
Primo |
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Subject/Disciplinary Focus |
Literature/Linguistics – most comprehensive |
All Literature |
Interdisciplinary |
More focused on the humanities and social sciences |
Interdisciplinary |
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Source types |
Scholarly journals, books, book chapters, dissertations, book reviews |
Literature reference books, journal articles, various media, newspapers, magazines |
Journal articles |
Journal articles |
Depends |
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Full-text? |
Some, will often need to check Lemieux’s collection for full-text |
All full-text! |
All-full text except the last 3-7 years. |
All full text. |
Partial |
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Indexing/Metadata |
Article indexing with subject terms and abstracts. |
Subject indexing and full text searching. |
No subject indexing. Based on searching full-text of articles. |
No subject indexing. Based on searching full-text of articles. |
Varies but lots of metadata searched. |
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Pros? |
Most comprehensive for literature. |
Not comprehensive but focused on lit and all full-text. |
All full text and all scholarly journal articles. |
All full-text and all scholarly journal articles. |
Biggest variety of source types. |
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Cons? |
Less immediate full-text so can be additional steps. Looking up books/book chapters can be confusing (need to use Primo for that). |
Not comprehensive (but pretty good!) |
Doesn’t include last 3-7 years of articles. No indexing, not comprehensive to literature. |
No indexing, not comprehensive to literature. |
So much going on! |
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Best Places to Start - Interdisciplinary Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowSearch more than 13,300 periodicals, including full text for nearly 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. It features a mix of interdisciplinary scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers and books.
- Research Library This link opens in a new window
Search more than 5,000 titles, over 3,500 in full text. It features a mix of interdisciplinary scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowExcellent source for full text scholarly journal articles in history, economics, education, philosophy, literature, African studies, Asian studies, African American studies, sociology, political science, science, and psychology.
