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 MU Libraries University of Missouri MU Libraries

Arts & Humanities : English Language & Literature

Core Resources

This guide shows the most basic and general resources for researching language and literature. Use the more specific subject guides to find more specialized resources for specific periods or areas of study. These include guides to Medieval Literature, Renaissance Literature, Restoration and 18th Century LiteratureAmerican Literature, and Modern and Contemporary Literature.

Databases for Articles
eBooks / Books

Databases for Articles

Databases for English Language & Literature
MLA International Bibliography Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,uid&profile=ehost&defaultdb=mzh
  
MLA indexes critical scholarship in the modern languages, literatures, linguistics and folklore. [more]

LION: Literature Online Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://lion.chadwyck.com
  
LION: Literature Online provides access to English language literature in full-text, reference works, bibliographies, web pages and full-text journals. [more]

ABELL Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://lion.chadwyck.com/initCritRefSearch.do?listType=abell
  

Also Known as: Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature
ABELL lists monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctorial dissertations dealing with the study of literature and linguistic published anywhere in the world. Coverage is 1920 to date. [more]

LLBA: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.csa3.com/htbin/dbrng.cgi?username=columbia&access=columbia8&cat=llba
  
Assists both generalists and specialists in keeping abreast of cutting-edge developments in disciplines concerned with the nature and use of language. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Complete coverage is also given to various fields of linguistics including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics. [more]

Literary Index Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitIndex
  
Literary Index is a master index to the major literature products published by Gale. It combines and cross-references more than 165,000 author names, including pseudonyms and variant names, and listings for over 215,000 titles into one source. [more]

A & H Search Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/autho=100336350;dbname=AHSearch&screen=advanced;done=referer;FSIP
  

Also Known as: Arts and Humanities Citation Index; Arts & Humanities Search
A & H Search is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. [more]

Academic Search Premier Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,uid&profile=ehost&defaultdb=aph
  
Academic Search Premier provides full text for over 4,600 academic, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 8,500 journals. Over 3,500 journals are peer reviewed. Full text backfiles go as far back as January of 1990, while indexing and abstract backfiles go as far back as January of 1984. Provided courtesy of MORENET. [more]

ArticleFirst Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/autho=100155003;dbname=Article1st;done=referer;FSIP
  
ArticleFirst is an OCLC index of articles from approximately 16,000 journals. Subjects covered include business, social science, science, technology, humanities, medicine, and culture. Coverage is 1990 to date. [more]

ECO: Electronic Collections Online Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/autho=100155003;dbname=ECO;done=referer;FSIP
  
ECO: Electronic Collections Online contains the original content and images from scholarly journals. Full-text (primarily archival) access is available for over 200 journals to which the MU libraries also subscribe in print format. [more]

GenderWatch Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/login?COPT=REJTPTM4M2QmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=45247
  
GenderWatch is a database of periodicals and newsletters that focus on women and women's issues. [more]

Google Scholar CD/DVD based resource available only from within the Ellis Library.
http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/search/databases/googlescholardirections.htm
  
[more]

JSTOR Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.jstor.org
  
A full-text database consisting of the Arts and Sciences I, II, III, IV, Ecology & Botany and General Science Collections which provide access to the back files of over 300 scholarly journals. Areas included are history, sociology, business, economics, ecology, literature, mathematics, music, political science, population studies, Asian studies, philanthropy and finance. Coverage begins with volume one of each title and continues to within 4-5 years of the present. [more]

Project Muse Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://muse.jhu.edu/muse.html
  
Project Muse provides full-text access to more than 100 scholarly journal titles from the Johns Hopkins University Press and other University presses covering the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Mathematics. [more]

Reader's Guide Retrospective 1890-1982 Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?CustID=0000114818&prod=RGR
  
Readers Guide Retrospective is a database containing comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. [more]

Gale Virtual Reference Library Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/morenetuomcolum?db=GVRL
  
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. [more]

Journals

Journals for English Language & Literature
Browse Journals on Literature Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://mulibraries.1cate.com/?category=art.lit
  

Tips for finding journals and journal articles
  • Looking for a specific article or journal? Try the Journal/Article Finder
  • Need to search for articles by keyword or topic? Try Databases in the Databases tab

Other Resources Online

Other Resources Online for English Language & Literature
Literary Resources on the Net
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/
  

Literature Online: Web Sites Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://lion.chadwyck.com/initCritRefSearch.do?listType=www
  
LION editors have selected substantive, scholarly websites dealing with English and American literature.

Voice of the Shuttle Web Site for Humanities Research
http://vos.ucsb.edu/
  

eBooks / Books

Dictionaries
Webster’s Third International Dictionary Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://lion.chadwyck.com/initRefShelfSearch.do?initialise=true&listType=mwd
  

Oxford English Dictionary Online Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.oed.com
  

Also Known as: OED
Gives current and historical definitions and usage of over half a million words in the English language worldwide, from formal language to slang. Each entry provides etymologies and quotations demonstrating usage. The online version includes the 2nd edition and ongoing updates to the 3rd, and permits free-text searching of an entire entry or searching within the etymology, definition or quotation fields. [more]

Encyclopedias
Literature Online: Reference Collection Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://lion.chadwyck.com/initCritRefSearch.do?listType=ref
  
LION provides a collection of online reference tools, including author biographies, dictionaries of literary terms, and summaries of major literary works.

Books/E-books
Literature Online: Text Collection Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://lion.chadwyck.com/gotoSearchTexts.do;jsessionid=D99987337B34AEA3A50ED08900024C3A?initialise=All
  
The text collection in LION includes standard works of English and American literature from Beowulf through the early 20th century. The search screen allows the user to define a body of literature by genre, time period, nationality, and author characteristics, and search within the defined corpus.

Google Book Search
http://books.google.com
  
Google Books contains the full text of books provided by libraries and publishers. Materials that are out of copyright (generally pre-1925) can be viewed online. For more recent books, Google Book Search functions as a detailed index. Books identified may be available at MU, via MOBIUS, or may be requested through ILL@MU. [more]

Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
  
The first creator of ebooks, Project Gutenberg provides over 25,000 works. Audiobooks and digital sheet music are also available from this site.

Bible in English Restricted to faculty, students, and staff at The University of Missouri
http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://collections.chadwyck.com
  
Bible in English is a collection of 20 different versions of the English Bible from the tenth to the twentieth century, including 12 full Bibles, 5 New Testament texts, 2 versions of the Gospels only, and translations by William Tyndale of the Pentateuch, Jonah and the New Testament. [more]

Library Catalogs
Copac
http://copac.ac.uk/
  
[more]

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/
  
[more]

British Library Manuscripts Catalogue
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/INDEX.asp
  
The catalog lists handwritten documents of all types from the pre-Christian era to modern times. Reproductions may be ordered through ILL@MU.

Tips for finding books
  • Looking for a specific book? Try the Book Finder
    • The Book Finder first searches in the MERLIN catalog.
    • If no resources are found in MERLIN, the search moves to the MOBIUS catalog (a catalog of many Missouri libraries).
  • Need to search for a book by keyword or topic? Search the MERLIN catalog