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ONLINE DATABASES & FULL TEXT RESOURCES

•   Indexes
•   Reference Works
•   Bibliographic Resources
•   Full-Text Primary Resources
•   External Links & Gateways

Indexes

• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) ABELL indexes scholarly criticism found in monographs, journal articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations. The subject areas ABELL covers include poetry, prose, fiction, films, biography, travel writing, literary theory and studies of individual authors. The online version of ABELL not only allows users to search by keyword, subject, author, title and journal, but it also allows users to limit search results to primary works only or reviews only. Also available in print. Restricted to University of Illinois users. Please use our ABELL Brief Search Guide to find out how to use the database effectively. Our ABELL Citation Guide can help you interpret your results.

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) [Web of Science] Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering academic journal literature. It indexes 1,100 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. Restricted to University of Illinois users.  SEARCHING NOTE:  The only way to get full results from A&HCI from Web of Science is to follow these steps: 1) click on the second tab from the left on the gateway page, "Select a Database."  2) Click on "Web of Science" and 3) scroll down to check ONLY the A&HCI dialog box.  Full results will not be returned from a raw search at the gateway page.

• Chaucer Bibliography Online Chaucer Bibliography Online is an extensive database that covers articles and analyses of Chaucer's works back to 1975.  It is supported by the University of Texas at San Antonio Library and the New Chaucer Society.

• Current Biography contains more than 15,000 full text biographies and more than 9,400 obituaries from all of the volumes of Current Biography Yearbook, from 1940 to the present.

  The biographies are searchable by name, profession, title, place of origin, gender, race/ethnicity, titles of works, date of birth, date of death, and keywords.

• Dissertation Abstracts Dissertation Abstracts identifies doctoral dissertations from U.S. & Canadian institutions. Abstracts from 1980. Includes Digital Dissertations, a full-text database of virtually every U.S. dissertation deposited since 1997.

• EBSCO: Academic Search Premier (Full-Text) Academic Search Premier is a multidisciplinary database providing full-text access to over 1500 periodicals (1990 to present), and citation/summary access to articles from nearly 4000 periodicals (1984 to present). This collection of journals and magazines provides some full-text journal coverage for nearly all academic areas of study, including the arts, humanities and literature. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• The Film and Television Literature Index (in EBSCO) Film & Television Literature Index is the definitive index to film and television literature. It is a bibliographic database that provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 300 publications (and selected coverage of 301).

• Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 indexes almost 1200 20th century journals in the humanities and social sciences.

• Index to English Literary Periodicals 1681-1941 Provides keyword indexing at the article level to the large (1000 reels) microfilm set of English Literary Periodicals held in the UIUC Main Stacks Microfilm Room.

• Index to Film Periodicals (FIAF)  Indexes film literature from 300 periodicals since 1972, and includes the FIAF thesaurus. Additionally, the database features print sources for 22,000 silent films, a bibliography of FIAF members' publications and a directory of film and TV documentation collections. This database is an acclaimed international compendium of information on film and television from the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). Restricted to University of Illinois users. For help in searching FIAF, please look at our FIAF Search Guide, and visit our FIAF Citation Guide to interpret your search results.

• International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) - Full-Text  Now available in full-text, IIPA indexes its current contents (1998 to present) and some retrospective titles (going back to the early 20th century) from more than 200 international performing arts periodicals. It includes reviews, articles, interviews, conference papers, and more. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance  The goal of Iter is to increase access to all published materials pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (1400-1700). Iter contains 250,000+ articles and reviews from over 400 medieval and renaissance journal titles.  See our Iter Search Guide

• JSTOR  JSTOR searches full-text for backfile articles and reviews in 130+ multi-disciplinary journals. See Project Muse (below) for more recent articles. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Literature Compass publishes peer reviewed survey articles from across the entire discipline. Experienced researchers, teaching faculty, and advanced students will all benefit from the accessible, informative articles that provide overviews of current research.

• Literature Criticism Online collects all of Gale's series on literary criticism, including: Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Shakespeare Criticism, Literature Criticism 1400-1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Drama Criticism,  and Children’s Literature Review

• Literature Resource Center includes full text journal articles, biographical content, topical overviews, literary journals and book reviews.  An excellent place to start research in literature.

• The MLA Bibliography  The MLA (Modern Language Association) Bibliography indexes scholarly criticism in language, literature, folklore, and linguistics from 1963 to the present. Also available in print form. Access restricted to University of Illinois users.  See our guides to searching and parsing citation in the MLA.

• Project Muse Searches full-text for 150+ journals supplied by 10 university presses. Muse works well for more recent periodical issues, while JSTOR (see above) reproduces older volumes. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900, Series 2   A subject bibliography of 50,000 publications intending to include every periodical and newspaper published on a regular basis, from daily to annually, in every language, within England during the time period.

• Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals An index to known authorship of anonymous and pseudonymous material in Victorian periodicals, 1824-1900.

Reference Works

• Biography Resource Center  Provides access to the biographies of over 300,000 people prominent in subject areas such as science, multicultural studies, business, politics, government, history, entertainment, sports, the arts, and literature. All time periods and nationalities are covered.

• Columbia Granger's World of Poetry  Columbia Granger's World of Poetry includes 13,000 public domain poems in full-text, thousands of excerpts from in-copyright poems as well as 250,000 poetry citations that can be searched by title, first line, last line, author, subject and keyword. This electronic resource also contains commentaries, biographies that are followed by a short bibliography, notes on form and a glossary of prosodic terms. A 1995 CD-ROM version is also available in the English Library.

• Contemporary Authors (in Literature Resource Center)  A bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields. Provides complete biographical and bibliographical references for more than 90,000 authors in the U.S. and around the world. Also available in print form.

• Contemporary Literary Criticism Select (in Literature Resource Center)  Provides an extensive collection of critical essays on contemporary writers. Each CLC Select entry also contains a biographical/critical introduction including pseudonyms and nationality, a listing of principal works, and sources for further study. Also available in print form.

• Dictionary of Literary Biography (in Literature Resource Center)  Documents the lives and careers of authors from all eras and genres. In addition to providing biographical and critical studies written by scholars and academics, DLB presents bibliographic information about each author's writings, as well as sources for further reading. Also available in print form.

• Magill OnLiterature  Compiled by Salem Press, this database is the definitive online source for editorially reviewed critical analyses. It also includes brief plot summaries of the most studied works in the history of literature. It contains all of Masterplots and Masterplots II, Cyclopedia of World Authors, Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Magill's Literary Annual, Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy as well as World Philosophers and Their Works.

• Middle English Compendium  The Middle English Compendium offers access to and interconnectivity betwen three electronic resources for Middle English: the Middle English Dictionary, a HyperBibliography of Middle English Prose and Verse, and a network of electronic resources.

• NoveList NoveList is an electronic readers advisory resource which assists fiction readers in finding new authors and titles. It contains materials for all ages including picture books, childrens chapter books, young adult titles and books for adult readers (around 70,000 fiction titles). NoveList is updated quarterly.

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB)  Over 50,000 biographies of important and notable figures in the history of the British Isles, from the 4th Century B.C.E. to the year 2000. Includes 10,000 portrait illustrations. Provides access to both the new, 60 volume DNB, as well as to biographies in the original Victorian classic.

• Oxford English Dictionary A searchable online version of the second edition and supplements of the OED, with periodic updates from the third revised edition. Also available in print.

• Oxford Reference Online  The core collection contains about 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. It is a fully-indexed, cross-searchable database of these books.

• WATCH: Writers and Their Copyright Holders  Provides the name and address of the copyright holder for a writer's works. In addition, it gives advice on finding the copyright holder if he/she is not included in the database.

• William Shakspere's Small Latine & Lesse Greeke "Shakespeare had 'small Latine and lesse Greeke', according to his contemporary, Ben Jonson. This famous judgment can be misleading to those living more than four centuries later. Learn more about Shakespeare's early education from these two remarkable volumes, originally published in 1944 by the University of Illinois Press, and available on the Web for the first time as a fully searchable, open-access electronic archive."

Full-Text Primary Resources

• 19th Century British Library Newspapers contains "full runs of 48 newspapers specially selected by the British Library to best represent nineteenth century Britain."

• 20th Century African-American Poetry A database of modern and contemporary African-American poetry from the early twentieth century to the present. Features 10,000 poems by around 70 of the most important African-American poets of the last century.

• African-American Poetry (1760-1900) Covers the works of 54 African-American poets writing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Searchable full-text database. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• American National Biography  Contains 17,435 biographical portraits of deceased Americans from the 1999 print edition, plus 500 new portraits added yearly and periodic updates of the biographies, bibliographies, and hyperlinks. Searchable by keyword, name, sphere of activity, birthplace, birth and death dates, and author/compiler. Contains 80,000 cross-reference links, and selected links to other sites.

• American Poetry Full-Text Database Features the works of more than 200 American poets from the Colonial period to the early twentieth century. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Archive of Americana (READEX) Search or browse the Archive of Americana's comprehensive historical collections, containing books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera. American State Papers, 1789-1838 Legislative and executive documents, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817 Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 Books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the renowned bibliography by Charles Evans Early American Imprints, Series II. Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 Books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the distinguished bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876 Hundreds of historic newspapers listed in Clarence Brigham's authoritative bibliography and in additional subsequent bibliographies U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980 Reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes.

• Bible in English Contains twenty-one different versions of the English Bible. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Bibliography of American Literature (BAL) The BAL provides nearly 40,000 records of the literary works of approximately 300 American writers from the period of the Revolution to 1930. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• British Periodicals provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images.

• Dickens: Letters Dickens: Letters contains eleven volumes of The Letters of Charles Dickens (the Pilgrim Edition). General editors: Madeline House, Graham Storey, Katheleen Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965ff.

• Dictionary of Old English Corpus University of Toronto's searchable full-text database of the surviving 3000+ Old English texts. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Early American Fiction A collection of 440 full texts of the first editions of American novels and short stories written before 1850 by authors of significance.

• Early English Books Online (EEBO) EEBO provides access to 125,000 titles before 1700, based on the microfilm collections of Early English Books listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1465-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) . Included are the Thompson Tracts, a compendium of broadsides on the English Civil War printed between 1640 and 1661. See also the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) (below) for related information. Restricted to University of Illinois users.  See our EEBO search guide.

• Early English Prose Fiction Contains over 200 works of prose fiction dating from 1500-1700. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Provides access to the digital images of every page of 150,000 books published during the 18th Century. Containes full-text searching of approximately 33 million pages of information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.

• Eighteenth Century Fiction Includes 77 complete works in English prose from the period 1700-1780, by writers from the British Isles. Restricted to University of Illinois users

• English Poetry Database Comprises the works of almost 1,350 poets from 600-1900. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• English Drama A unique collection of more than 3,900 plays in verse and prose tracing the development of drama in English from the medieval mystery cycles to the comedies of Oscar Wilde.  Includes the contents of formerly distinct resources English Prose Drama and English Verse Drama.

• The Modernist Journals Project Full-text digitization of early modernist journals written in English between 1890 and 1922. Some ancillary critical sources are also included.

• The On-Line Books Page Founded in 1993 and currently maintained at the University of Pennsylvania, this site includes thousands of freely available full-text online books collected from various e-text sites (some are searchable). Includes special sections on women writers, literary prize winners, and some foreign language titles. To find primary English and American literature, browse the Language and Literature page.

• Periodicals Archive Online An archive of hundreds of digitised journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

• Representative Poetry On-Line University of Toronto's searchable full-text database of English poetry from the medieval period to the early twentieth century.

• Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period contains 60 volumes of Romantic Poetry from 47 poets, extensive contemporary critical reviews, as well as material specially written for this database by leading scholars.

• (Shakespeare) Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare Contains eleven major editions from the First Folio of 1623 to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, twenty-eight separate contemporary printings of individual plays and poems, selected apocrypha and related works. Restricted to University of Illinois users.

• (Shakespeare) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Online edition of Shakespeare's Plays based on the Complete Moby (tm) Shakespeare. Public Access.

• University of Virginia E-Texts Provides access to the full-text of a variety of literary works. Covers texts written in several languages. Some of the links, however, are restricted to University of Virginia users.

• Victorian Women Writers Project Featuring the full-text works of British women from the Victorian period (1830-1910).

• W.B. Yeats Collection Contains the major works of Yeats in all genres, including poetry, plays, criticism, and fiction, based upon the Scribner/Macmillan Collected Edition and other sources.

• Women Writer's Project This long-term project at Brown University makes texts by pre-Victorian women writers accessible in electronic form. In addition to full text documents, the site includes a searchable catalogue, topical essays, and links to related sites.

• Wright American Fiction, 1851-1875 "Wright American Fiction, 1851-1875" consists of electronic texts of over 1,700 novels and other works of fiction published between 1851-1875. Searchable by author, title, keyword, publisher and publication date.

 

Bibliographic Resources

• Archives USA Offers access to holdings and contact information for more than 4,800 repositories, with details of holdings and areas of special interest. It indexes over 109,000 special collections and includes the Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the United States (DAMRUS), the National Union Catalogue of Manuscript (NUCMC), and National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (NIDS).

• CIC VEL (Virtual Electronic Library) Not currently available. Contact IRRC for assistance.

• English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) The ESTC contains records for works printed in England and territories governed by Britain from 1473 through 1800, as well as works printed in English elsewhere in the world during that period. It reflects the holdings of over 1500 libraries around the world as of December 1997. See also Early English Books Online (EEBO) (above) for related information. Available only through networked public-access "Library Gateway" PC terminals as CD-ROM version.  For help in searching ESTC, please look at our ESTC Search Guide.

• The MLA Directory The MLA Directory lists over 3,700 periodicals in the areas of literature, language, linguistics, and folklore that are covered regularly in the MLA International Bibliography. The directory provides addresses, advertising rates, and information about submissions for publication. Access restricted to University of Illinois users.

• World Shakespeare Bibliography Online The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online provides annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare and published or produced between 1971 and early 2002. The scope is international and the database includes more than 75,000 records which cite several hundred thousand additional reviews of books, productions, films and audio recordings. Access restricted to University of Illinois users.

• WorldCat WorldCat is the combined union catalog of OCLC member libraries worldwide, with over 43 million records representing materials in all formats. See also CIC VEL (above) for titles not available in the UIUC Catalog.

 

External Links & Gateways

• The Anglo-Norman On-line Hub is primarily useful for its searchable and browsable Anglo-Norman dictionary but also includes a number of articles on Anglo-Norman topics.

• Byron Society Collection Produced by the Byron Society of America, this website includes a catalogue of the Collection of the Byron Society at the University of Delaware. Also provides a list of Byron websites.

• The Chaucer Metapage Audio Files This website is dedicated to helping students improve speaking the Middle English found in the works of Chaucer. Links include various audio readings of Chaucer's works, a pronunciation guide, and audio readings of similar works.

• Copyright Term and Public Domain in the United States Good reference tool for checking copyright terms on publication types.  The chart began as an expanded version of Lolly Gasaway's copyright chart, but with the primary focus on unpublished works.  The current incarnation includes an updated section on unpublished works, which reflects copyright status as of 1 January 2004.

• The English Server Carnegie Mellon University's links to resources in the humanities. Covers topics such as drama, film, various literary genres, software, philosophy, and even recipes.

• Fontes Anglo-Saxonici A register of written sources used by authors in Anglo-Saxon England. The database contains records analysing the source-relationships of about 1143 texts and identifying the use of over 1000 sources. It also shows which texts were known in Anglo-Saxon England, how well texts and authors were known, and in what ways they were used.

• FWEET is a playful and unique search engine of over 79,000 "elucidating" notes on Joyce's Finnegan's Wake geared toward scholars.

• Inter-Play Inter-Play provides easy access to the locations of plays printed in collections, anthologies and periodicals.

• The Labyrinth Georgetown University's links to databases, services, and electronic texts serving the area of medieval studies.

• Literary Resources on the Net Jack Lynch's searchable collection of links to resources in the field of literature. Covers the literature from classical times to the present and includes literature in other languages.

• Poets House Poets House is a literary center and poetry archive founded in 1985.  Touted as "a home for all who read and write poetry," it contains a 40,000 volume poetry collection and an ongoing set of programs and other areas of interest. The site is free and open to the public.

• Romantic Circles Romantic Circles offers a variety of scholarly resources on the study of Romantic-period literature and culture, including refereed editions of primary texts, pedagogical resources for different education levels, and reviews of major scholarship in the field.

• Victorian Web Funded by the University Scholars Program at the National University of Singapore, Victorian Web is a resource that provides a variety of historical and cultural perspectives on Victorian society, including literature, theater, philosophy, and art.

• Voice of the Shuttle Alan Liu's collection of links to resources in the Humanities. Covers a wide range of topics such as world literature, media studies, art, and history--even covers library catalogs, museum exhibits, and links for children.

• William Shakespere's Small Latine & Lesse Greeke Maintained by the University of Illinois Press, this site provides access to the contents of T.W. Baldwin's William Shakespere's Small Latine & Lesse Greeke, originally published in 1944 by the University of Illinois Press, and available on the Web as the first time as a fully searchable, open-access electronic archive.

• WSSLINKS Women and Gender Studies Literature and Culture Websites Maintained by the Association of College and Research Libraries, this metasite provides links to numerous online texts, bibliographies, electronic literary magazines, and multi-disciplinary resources covering the intersection of Women's Studies and Literary Studies.

For comments on this page contact: Pete Coco

Last modified by: Peter Coco on 4/7/09