Background from reference
Reading specialized reference books helps to provide an overview of the topic, helps come up with ideas for searchable keywords, and even provides lists of other sources from bibliographies that are often included with the entries.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowOver 3,500,000 full text entries from over 1,000 different sources. Use this resource to gather background information to start your research. Includes mind map.
Key events
Reading specialized reference sources could give you insight on key events relating to a literature setting. For example, reading a story set in America in the 1950s? Take a look at American Decades 1950 to 1959.
American Decades Primary Sources by Call Number: R 973.9 A51236 1950 (Books)ISBN: 9780787665937Publication Date: 2003-12-05
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowIncludes the American Decades series (online). Search GVRL for these titles and more.
Find critical reviews
- Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowMulti-subject database, with more than 8,500 magazines and journals. Includes abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowCore journals in economics, history, political science, sociology, language, performing and visual arts, music, Eastern and Western religions, law, education, psychology, and public policy and administration. Includes collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world.
- Literary Reference Center (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowFull-text collection of literary reference works & journals.
- Poetry & Short Story Reference Center (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowThis full-text database provides a historically rich collection of hundreds of thousands of classic and contemporary poems, as well as short stories, biographies and authoritative essays on such topics as poetic forms, movements and techniques — including contemporary content from the finest publishers. More than 2,400 audio recordings of poets reading their own works.
- Salem Literature This link opens in a new windowIncludes themes such as censored and banned literature, conspiracies, and feminism. Coverage on Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. Includes works by Shakespeare and critical surveys of graphic novels, mythology, and poetry.
Reference resources
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window500+ reference titles containing over 3 million entries, including 200,000+ images. A wide variety of titles from 60+ publishers.
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowGale eBooks, formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library, contains over 200 reference and specialized sources on multiple subjects.
- Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new windowThe definitive record of the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium.
- Oxford Reference This link opens in a new windowAccess eBooks owned by the library pertaining to:
• Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to Present
• Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895
• Encyclopedia of Global Change
• Grove Dictionary of American Music
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature
Includes information from Oxford’s Quick Reference site pertaining to timelines and overview pages.