LibGuides: E 303: Plan II World Literatures, Pat Garcia: 2. Library Databases & Search Tools

1. Background Information

Find summaries, short articles, and descriptions on scholarly topics from vetted encyclopedias and dictionaries. Think "scholarly Wikipedia" (and unlike Wikipedia, you can cite these in an academic paper).

Credo Reference
A broad, multidisciplinary collection of encyclopedias and dictionaries. Also has a fun mind-mapping tool for most topics.

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.
Gale eBooks
The name says "eBooks," but this is an excellent collection of humanities encyclopedias.

Updated regularly. A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources. Fully searchable across all files. A list of sources included in our subscription is available.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide

2. Find Scholarly Criticism (Books & Journal Articles)

Literary criticism is the scholarly evaluation, explanation, and analysis of literature. It can be written at any time, even centuries after the publication of the literature it critiques. Literary criticism is often found in scholarly journals or books. Not sure what we mean by "scholarly"? See some explanation on this page.

MLA International Bibliography
Search for: Scholarly journal articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations. MLA is a top search tool for literary studies and literary criticism. Video tutorial on how to use MLA.

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
Search for: Scholarly journal articles, books, and book chapters. JSTOR is a key database for humanities research. Note that it is multidisciplinary and may require more exact search terms than MLA.

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

3. Find Interviews

For interviews with writers, try these databases with newspapers and magazines.
Hint: Try using the word "interview" as one of your search keywords, along with the author's name. Some these databases have an option in Advanced Search to limit to interviews. If you have questions, ask Gina!

Academic Search Complete
A broad, multidisciplinary database of scholarly journals, newspapers, magazines, and other publications.
NOTE: Because this is such a large database, it can be a little tricky to narrow down to interviews. Try using the word "interview" as a keyword, or use the limiters on the left margin to narrow your search results.

Updated daily. A comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database, with more than 5,300 full text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. Offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
New York Times (Historical)
The historical backfile of the New York Times from 1851-2017.
NOTE: If you're working with a living author and want interviews after 2017, you might want to try another database. Ask Gina for additional help if needed.

Updated annually. Includes all the articles published since the first issue of the paper in 1851. Provides full text and full image articles with digital reproductions of every page, every article and every issue in PDF format. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, and advertisements.
More recent years are also available in other full text resources.
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive
The historical backfile of The Times of London's Literary Supplement, which includes many book reviews and author interviews. It runs from 1902-2016.

The complete online fully-searchable edition of the Times Literary Supplement from the first edition in 1902 to 5 years ago. This is the essential companion for studying and researching literary activity and critical opinion makers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since 1902, the TLS has scrutinized, applauded and dissected the work of leading writers and thinkers, offering comprehensive coverage of the most important publications, in every subject, in several languages, as well as reviewing current theatre, cinema, music, and exhibitions.
Nexis Uni
A large database of newspapers, including papers from other countries.
NOTE: This database is known for having a tricky search interface. Don't hesitate to ask for help from Gina or the Ask A Librarian service if you run into trouble.

Updated continually. Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an interface that offers discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Effective January 1, 2018, Nexis Uni™ replaces LexisNexis Academic.
MasterFILE Complete
A very large collection of newspapers, magazines, trade publications, and other periodicals, mostly from the U.S. It's updated daily!

Updated daily. Provides indexing and abstracts for over 2,780 periodicals and full text coverage for nearly 1,860 general reference, business, consumer health, general science, and multi-cultural periodicals.

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