Finding Books
English language & literature materials can be located by browsing the following call numbers, located on the 3rd floor:
P - Linguistics
PE - English language
PN - Literature (general)
PJ-PM, PQ, PT - World literatures
PR - English literature
PS - American literature
... or by searching the library catalog by subject:
Literature
Poetry
Specific country (examples: American literature, Irish poetry)
Specific author (example: Shakespeare, William)
Specific movement (example: Romanticism)
Selected Print Reference Books
Check out the following Reference Books, located on the first floor of the library. A reference book can save you a lot of time if you are unfamiliar with the subject and need a concise overview as well a ideas for further research.
The Oxford Companion to the Brontës by Call Number: PR4168 .A3 2018 [Reference]
100 Greatest American Plays by Call Number: PS625 .H57 2017 [Reference]
The Definitive Shakespeare Companion by Call Number: PR2976 .D43 2017 [Reference] 4 volumes
Historical Dictionary of U. S. Latino Literature by Call Number: PS153.H56 U75 2017 [Reference]
American women speak : an encyclopedia and document collection of women's oratory by Call Number: PS663.W65 S56 2017 [Reference]2 volumes
The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation by Call Number: PE1106 .G35 2016 [Reference]
Garner's modern English usage by Call Number: PE2827 .G37 2016 [Reference]
The Norton Shakespeare by Call Number: PR2754 .G74 2016 [Reference]
Finding Articles
There are several ways to search for articles on your research topic:
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
If the library does not subscribe to the article or journal you need, you can still obtain it by filling out a request through Interlibrary Loan:
Selected Online Journals
- African American ReviewScholarly essays on African American literature, theater, film, the visual arts, and cultures; features interviews, poetry, fiction, and book reviews.
- American Literary HistoryCovers the studies of U.S. literature from its origins through the present. Includes essays, position papers, commentaries, reviews, interviews, previously unpublished diaries, letters, and stories.
- College LiteratureScholarly research across the range of periods, intellectual fields, and geographical locations that comprise the changing discipline of Anglophone and comparative literary studies.
- Comparative LiteratureExplores issues in literary history and theory; represents a wide-ranging look at the intersections of national literatures, global literary trends, and theoretical discourse.
- Early American LiteratureExamines American literature from its inception through the early national period, about 1830.
- Journal of Modern LiteratureScholarly studies of literature in the twentieth century with emphasis on the Modernist period; discussion of individual writers.
- The Literary ReviewInternational contemporary writing, essays, poetry, drama, criticism, and translations.
- MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.Illuminates the national, international, and transnational contexts of U.S. ethnic literature.
- Modern DramaScholarly articles that enhance our understanding of plays in both formal and historical terms, largely treating literature of the past two centuries from diverse geo-political contexts, as well as an extensive book review section.
- Studies in English LiteratureFocuses on four fields of British literature in rotating, quarterly issues: English Renaissance, Tudor and Stuart Drama, Restoration and Eighteenth Century, and Nineteenth Century.
- Twentieth-Century LiteratureArticles on all aspects of modern and contemporary literature, including articles in English on writers in other languages.
Finding E-Reference Books
Maxwell Library provides access to thousands of e-books, which can be located in a general MaxSearch as well as through specific databases, such as the following:
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowFull-text content from more than 260 reference titles with nearly 3 million entries covering every major subject.
- DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books This link opens in a new windowDirectory of nearly 9,000 free, open access, peer-reviewed academic books and chapters from 224 publishers.
- eBook Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowSearchable full text for several thousand e-books on a variety of subjects.
Selected Databases
- Academic Search Complete [EBSCO] This link opens in a new windowMulti-disciplinary full-text database with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. Indexes and abstracts more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, and conference proceedings. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals.
- Biography Reference Center [EBSCO] This link opens in a new windowMore than 461,000 full-text biographies with complete runs of Biography Today and Biography.
- Book Review Digest Plus (H.W. Wilson) [EBSCO] This link opens in a new windowIncludes book reviews of a wide range of topics for more than 5,000 indexed journals. A comprehensive readers’ advisory, collection development, and literary research tool for public, academic, corporate, and K-12 libraries, this database features full-text reviews from over 1,400 periodicals, and over two million review citations.
- Books in Print with Book Reviews [Proquest} This link opens in a new windowIndex to U.S. books in print, along with full-text reviews from nine sources including Library Journal, Publishers' Weekly, and Kirkus.
- Britannica Academic This link opens in a new windowElectronic version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- Academic OneFile This link opens in a new windowThe premier source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles for academic libraries from the world's leading journals, this comprehensive resource covers the physical and social sciences, medicine, engineering, the arts, technology, literature, and many other subjects. With millions of articles in both PDF and HTML full-text format and simultaneous, unlimited usage, researchers are able to find accurate, timely information quickly. Gale's InterLink technology intelligently connects contextually-relevant results from your library's eBook collection on GVRL within articles in a user's search results. The Topic Finder tool adds power and depth to searches, allowing students to mine their search results and develop their research focus in ways never before available.
- Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new windowSearch over 1800 volumes from Children’s Literature Review, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Drama Criticism, Poetry Criticism and Short Story Criticism. Scholarly and popular commentary from broadsheets, pamphlets, encyclopedias, books and periodicals.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowBSU currently has access to journal collections Arts & Sciences I, II, III, and IV.
- Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowBiographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowProduced by the Modern Languages Association (MLA), this electronic version of the bibliography dates back to the 1920s and contains millions of citations from journals, series, and book publishers.
- Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new windowWidely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language, containing the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words - past and present - from across the English-speaking world.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowCollection of peer-reviewed digital humanities and social science content for the scholarly community.