LibGuides: E 314V / AFR 315: African American Literature & Culture, Annie Bares: Search Tools & Databases

Library Search Tools and Databases

The UT Libraries provide access to a number of helpful search tools useful for this class. If you have questions about how to use these tools, please contact Gina or use our Ask A Librarian chat service.

Unsure what we mean by "library database"? See the helpful video at the bottom of the page!

Background Information

Looking for something like Wikipedia but scholarly and appropriate for an academic assignment? Try these vetted, edited collections of scholarly encyclopedias, biographies, dictionaries, and bibliographies.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
The definitive dictionary of the English language.

Updated quarterly. Covers words from across the English-speaking world and offers etymological analysis, listings of variant spellings, and phonetic pronunciation. Corresponds to the print Oxford English Dictionary published in 1989 and the three Additions volumes published 1993-1997.
African American Studies Center
Articles, biographies, and summaries on key topics related to African American history and culture.
Updated regularly. A comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with sophisticated technology permitting precise search and browse capabilities. Features over 7,500 articles from Oxford's authoritative reference works, approximately 100 primary sources with specially written commentaries, over 1,000 images, over 100 maps, over 200 charts and tables, timelines to guide researchers through the history of African Americans and over 6,000 biographies.
Some of the titles included in this access are:
- African American Artists before the Twentieth Century
- African American National Biography
- Africana
- Black Women in America, Second Edition
- Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present
Credo Reference
An easy-to-use collection of encyclopedias, dictionaries, and glossaries. A great alternative to Wikipedia!

Over 3 million full-text authoritative dictionary/encyclopedia-like entries alongside thousands of easily searchable images, audio files, and videos. Credo provides access to hundreds of in-depth titles covering major subjects from current Social Issues to Ancient History and Shakespeare to Einstein. Includes "Mind Maps", keyword visualization tools.

Scholarly Articles & Books

UT Libraries Catalog
Discover books and ebooks in the UT Libraries' collection is to use our library catalog. For more info on Finding Books, see this guide.

MLA International Bibliography
Find literary criticism and scholarship on literary studies in books, book chapters, scholarly journal articles, and dissertations. See the MLA International Bibliography Tutorial for search instructions.

Updated ten times per year. Indexes critical materials on literature, criticism, drama, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Provides access to citations from over 4,400 journals, series, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. Produced by the Modern Language Association.
For help searching the MLA International Bibliography, please see the MLA's video tutorials.
JSTOR
An important scholarly search tool for humanities research. Search across thousands of journals and books.

Updated regularly. Offers a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive to support scholarship and teaching. Includes archives of over 1,000 leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.
Members of the public can read online up to three articles for free every two weeks from a large subset of JSTOR journals via the Register & Read program. This program allows remote access. Non-UT students, faculty and staff who need more articles can contact library staff for other access options.

For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
African American Periodicals
Search across 170 publications by and about African Americans. Includes scholarly journals, magazines, newsletter, and more.

African American Periodicals, 1825-1995, features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations bulletins, annual reports and other genres.

What is a Library Database?

Your instructor or subject librarian may throw around the term "library database" a lot, but what exactly do they mean? This video from RMIT University in Australia explains the term and how you can use databases for research. (Plus, the narrator has a great accent!)

Transcript available through YouTube.