RACC PATHFINDER # 7
How To Find Literary Criticism On The Internet
You can find literary criticism on the Internet by using subscription-based databases or individual web sites. Subscription-based databases are available only to patrons of libraries which subscribe to the databases. They require passwords when you use them. Pick up the passwords for the library’s databases at the Circulation Desk of The Yocum Library.
The Yocum Library of Reading Area Community College subscribes to
EBSCOhost http://search.epnet.com contains the database, Academic Search Elite, which indexes literary criticism journals.
Gale Group http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/read19603 provides Contemporary Literary Criticism and Twayne’s World, American, and English Authors databases.
The Oxford Reference Library http://www.oxfordreference.com contains 100 valuable reference sources covering many academic fields including Literature.
In addition, because a RACC library card is a Reading Public Library card too, you can access online the databases to which Reading Public Library subscribes. These include
Contemporary Authors and Scribners Writers Series http://www.reading.lib.pa.us Click on the link to Power Library and then onto the link for the databases. Your password is your library card number.
Also many colleges and universities produce useful web sites on authors and their works, but you must be careful that you are using reputable web sites. High quality search engines will lead you to additional sources on the Internet, but you must be very careful to evaluate the web sites before you use them. Look to see that the web site is from a reputable source (usually a “.edu” website) and that it does not have a tilde ~ in the URL which would indicate it is a student’s personal page rather than the college’s page. Quality search engines include Google http://www.google.com or Kartoo http://www.kartoo.com.
When conducting academic research, a better choice than a search engine is usually a search directory. A search directory is a collection of web sites chosen by the creators of the web site. You can easily find reputable academic web sites whose creators carefully evaluate web sites before they include them in the search directory web site. The following academic search directories should lead you to useful, reputable web sites.
Academic Search Directories
AllLearn http://www.allianceforlifelonglearning.org/ is a joint project by Oxford, Stanford, and Yale Universities to identify the best web sites for academic research.
Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu/ contains 40,000+ recommended web sites from The University of California at Riverside.
Bubl Link, http://bubl.ac.uk/link/ is from the Andersonian Library of Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland.
Voice of the Shuttle http://vos.ucsb.edu/ is from the University of California at Santa Barbara
PINAKES http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html is hosted by Heriot?Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Humbul Humanities Hub http://www.humbul.ac.uk/ is hosted by Oxford University.
Literary Resources on the Net http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/ is maintained by Professor Jack Lynch of Rutgers University (this is one ~ personal page which is recommended to use)
The Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ is created by the University of Michigan. It has a special collection of literary criticism web sites plus a collection of full-text online books.
In addition to academic search directories, there are also commercial or popular search directories. Some good ones to try are About.com http://www.about.com or Google’s own directory at http://directory.google.com/ which might lead you to some web sites for popular authors. Don’t forget to evaluate the web site before you use it for research.
N.B. Yahoo is NOT a good search directory to use for any academic research.