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Languages and Literatures: Literary Criticism/Culture Article Databases
Reference E-Book Databases for Literary Criticism
Below are several reference e-book series from Gale Cengage Learning to help students, faculty, and beginning as well as advanced researchers find scholarly commentary on British, American, and world authors, literary works, and overviews of literary periods and topics. These databases offer searchable online PDF versions of the well-known Gale reference book series, and include biographical information about writers, lists of their works, bibliographies of criticism, and interpretive essays and excerpts from scholarly books, journal articles, and other publications.
You will need to log in with your OSU email address and O-Key password to access these database off-campus. Click HERE to log in.
- Literature Resource CenterGale's Literature Resource Center offers up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism, and reviews on more than 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world. Its materials support interdisciplinary approaches, information literacy, and the development of critical thinking skills.
- Dictionary of Literary Biographyprovides more than 16,000 biographical and critical essays from the celebrated Dictionary of Literary Biography series, the DLB Documentary series, and the DLB Yearbook series. It covers the lives, works, and careers of the most influential literary figures in the world from all eras and genres. Browse by author or volume of the print series, or search keyword, full text, or named author.
- Contemporary Authors(vol. 206 [2003] to the present) is an online, searchable bio-bibliographical guide with full-text entries on current American, British, and international writers of fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other media. It covers living authors and authors who died after 1950. Volumes 1-205 of the Contemporary Authors series and other pre-2003 parts of the series are only available in print. The books are shelved in the General Reference area, 1st floor, at call # 809.05 C7611.
- Something About The Author Onlineprovides first-time comprehensive online access to the acclaimed and long-standing Something About the Author Gale series, which examines the lives and works of authors and illustrators for children and young adults and is the preeminent source on authors and literature for young people. Includes biographies, brief biographies, autobiographies, and obituaries. Browse authors or search by keyword, full text, or named author.
Databases for Journal Articles, etc.
Below are the key subject databases to search for journal articles of literary criticism on works of literature in different languages and from various national literary traditions. Some of the databases will have articles on the culture and history of different countries (including topics such as art, architecture, religion, sports, and other aspects of life and society). Many of the databases have full-text articles, but if the full text is not available, click on the Article Linker link ( 
). If another database from the OSU Library has the full text of the article, it will be displayed in a new window or a link to it will appear. If an article is not available online from another database, you can get a copy of the article from interlibrary loan. Click on the "Request a copy of this article" link and log in to the Interlibrary Services page that comes up. The article citation information will automatically appear in the interlibray loan form. Click the "Submit" button, and you will receive an email when your article is available, usually within 48 hours.
You will need to log in with your OSU email address and O-Key password to access these databases off-campus. Click HERE to log in. The best databases to search for literature and culture/civilization are:
- MLA International Bibliography(via EBSCO) is the largest, most comprehensive database to search for articles from over 4,400 international journals, book chapters, books, etc. of literary criticism from 1926 to the present. It includes literary criticism of authors in multiple languages and literary works along with articles on linguistics, folklore, and related fields. Some articles will have abstracts (summaries). The MLA International Bibliography from EBSCO has full text and linked full text articles.
- JSTORprovides full-text access for over 1,450 scholarly journals in language and literature, history, and many other humanities and social sciences disciplines. It also has some academic e-books in the humanities and social sciences. Coverage is generally from 1900-2000, and there is a 3-5 year moving wall embargo for new content.
- Project MUSEprovides full-text access to 43 journals published by The Johns Hopkins University Press and other university presses. Includes journals in literature, theatre, history, and other humanities and social sciences disciplines. Coverage varies from 1993-2007 to the present, including new content as it comes out. Most articles are in English but there are some in other languages.
- Humanities International Completeis an EBSCO database covering 2,300 journals and full text for 1,200 journals in several humanities fields, especially literature, history, philosophy, religious studies, etc. It has good coverage of ancient and modern European and Latin American history. Contains some full-text journal articles, books, and other publications. Most of articles are in English, but some are in other European languages.
- America: History & LifeAmerica: History and Life contain historical research (articles) on all the Americas as well as articles on indigenous populations.
- Iter Bibliographyis a massive bibliography of more than 1.2 million citations for secondary source material about the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, 400-1700. (NOTE: for articles in search results, click on the title to view the citation details, and then click on the "Check for full text" link to see if OSU has the full text.)
- International Medieval Bibliographyis the leading interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages. It covers periodical literature and miscellany volumes published in Europe, North America, Australasia, Brazil, Japan and South Africa.
- Art & Architecture Completeis an EBSCO database with some full-text articles on the visual arts and architecture, and is good for background information for culture and civilization research.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Globalhas the full text of doctoral dissertations in many different fields from universities in the United States and some other countries (though not many); most will be in English. OSU dissertations from 1961 to the present are included, and the database has dissertations from many universities from the late 1990s to the present.
- Linguistics and Language Behavior AbstractsLLBA 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. Indexing covers over 1,200 serials, with links to full-text of articles in hundreds of journals. Coverage from 1973 to present.
General Databases
The following are general library databases with some full-text articles from journals and other periodicals covering many subject areas. They are not specific to any one field, but are multidisciplinary and worth consulting along with the subject-specific databases listed above.
- ProQuest (Research Library) indexes over 4,700 journals, magazines, and newspapers many subject fields from approximately 1970 to the present, and includes full-text articles from over 3,300 journals.
- Academic Search Premier from EBSCO has citations and abstracts from over 8,500 journals (4,600 with full-text articles) from 1975 to the present.
