English

Library and Web resources

The following links are intended to be a starting point for finding resources relating to English, as taught at Flinders University.

It includes:

• Reference material and books
• Journals and library databases
• Websites

Reference Material

There is also a good collection of Children's Literature Reference books in the Sturt Library.

Books

The best way to find books on a topic is to do a search on Voyager (the library catalogue). Search either by keyword or subject heading.

Useful subject headings include:

Literature
Style, Literary
Fiction
Authorship
Creative writing
Characters and characteristics
Women Authors
Literature, Medieval

Note that many of these subject headings can be further subdivided by country or region (eg. South Australia, New Zealand, etc), by type of material (handbooks, case studies, etc) or by more specific aspects (biography, pictorial works, etc).

Alternatively, browse the shelves at the following call numbers:

821 (Poetry)
823 (English Fiction)
A823 (Australian Fiction)
822.33 (Shakespeare)

A number of books and readings may have been placed on Reserve and/or eReserve. Use the Course Reserve Search on Voyager to search for your course.

Journals

A journal (also known as a periodical, serial or annual) is a publication that appears at regular intervals on an ongoing basis. Each issue has the same title and contains articles written by many different authors. Reading the journal literature is a good way to keep up-to-date in the field.

The library subscribes to a number of print and electronic journals; your lecturer will probably recommend titles that s/he thinks are particularly useful.

Library databases

The best way to find articles in journals is to use one of the many journal indexes available. These are available in electronic format and are commonly referred to as Library databases. There are two types of Library database: citation and full text.

Citation databases provide enough information to direct you to the full text of the article. They have sophisticated search capabilities, are subject-specific, and usually cover at least 30 years’ worth of literature. You will retrieve a citation (also known as a reference) for each item.

Full text databases will take you directly to the full text. While this is convenient, it is important to remember that there is a limited amount of material available in this format.

It is worth using a citation database that is subject-specific to ensure you obtain the maximum possible references, especially when looking for specialised information.

The following table summarises the most useful databases for English-related research. A complete list can be found here.

Resource	Discipline	Dates	Coverage	Access	Help
APAIS: Australian Public Affairs Information Service (via Informit)	Social Sciences and Humanities; Australian	Citation 1978 -	Newspapers, scholarly journals, conference papers and books. 220+ comprehensively indexed journals
APA-FT (via Informit)	Social Sciences and Humanities; Australian	Full text: 1995- ; Index: 1978-	Newspapers, scholarly journals, conference papers and books. 220+ comprehensively indexed journals
Arts and humanities citation index	Multi-disciplinary	Citation; 1987-	1,100+ of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals.
Austlit	Australian literature	Citation; 1880-	Book, journal and electronic publications by and about Australian authors
Factiva	Multi-disciplinary	Full text; varies, 1998-	Contains all Fairfax and News Ltd newspapers
Google Scholar	Multi-disciplinary	Full text	Peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.
JSTOR	Multi-disciplinary	Citation; varies	550+ titles in the Arts and Sciences, containing many of the core research and society published journals
MLA directory of periodicals	Multi-disciplinary	Citation; 1963-	3,700+ periodicals in the areas of literature, language, linguistics, and folklore that are covered regularly in the MLA International Bibliography.
MLA International Bibliography	Multi-disciplinary	Citation; 1963-	Bibliographic records relating to literature, language, linguistics and folklore.
ProQuest 5000	Multi-disciplinary	Citation; 1963-	Major collection of online databases with full text articles from over 4000 journals.

Most library databases index scholarly journals. Many also index magazines, newspapers and trade publications; some may also index conference papers, book chapters, theses and government reports.

It is important to be able to recognise a scholarly journal, i.e. a journal that has been peer-reviewed. Peer review is the process of checking information by other experts in the field (peers) to he field (peers) to evaluate it before its publication.

Websites

See the Library's Guide to Internet Research for how to find, evaluate and cite Internet information.

• General Links
• Literature by Country, Period or Genre
• Web Subject Directories
• Electronic Texts and Book Reviews
• Reference

General Links

• Bartleby.com Search the classics of literature, nonfiction, and reference.
• BUBL Link A catalogue of internet resources including general resources, Scottish and Irish literature, children's literature and poetry. From the Andersonian Library, Strathclyde University.
• everypoet.com Full text of poems, biographical material, links to other poetry pages
• Flinders University English Department
• The Humbul Humanities Hub High quality links to scholarly resources in the humanities. Maintained and revised regularly. Oxford University.
• Literary Resources on the Net A comprehensive site updated regularly by Jack Lynch, University of Pennsylvania, and linked from many other sites.
• Norton Topics Online Topics cover from the Middle Ages to twentieth century literature. Has excerpts of texts and discussion of them, and related Web links.
• Online Literary Criticism Collection The Internet Public Library. Contains thousands of critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by nationality and literary period.
• Page by page books Full text of 19th and 20th century books. Arranged by author and title.

Literature by Country, Period or Genre

• American Authors on the Web A chronological listing of authors from the American Literature: General Resources page, Dept of Comparative Language and Culture, Nagoyu University, Japan. Over half so far have links to other sites. Updated regularly.
• Ozlit Australian literary resources site maintained by the State Library of Victoria. More than 500 pages of literary information.
• Australian Literature on the Internet From the National Library of Australia. Aboriginal Australian literature, biographical sources, organisations.
• Australian Literary and Historical Texts The collection is approaching nearly 200 full-text Australian 18th, 19th and early 20th century texts. Fully searchable for keywords and phrases, and can be browsed by the names of their authors.
• South Australian Women Writers A database of women writers in South Australia from 1836 to 1999 aiming to provide brief biographies and lists of their published writing.
• Australian Young Adult Fiction Page Authored by Phd student at Flinders University. Mainly Australian emphasis. Includes useful references, book reviews and other information relevant to Australian Young Adult Fiction / Authors.
• The Children's Book Council of Australia Children's Book of the Year Awards, information and links for Australian children's literature
• IASL: Children's Literature Resources Links to several useful sites from the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL).
• CLWG: Children's Literature Web Guide Links for authors, book reviews, online journals. Comprehensive guide to English-language children's book awards.
• Database of Award-Winning Children's Literature Search for award winners of the Caldecotte Medal etc. Access high quality book titles by using a form to indicate reading level, genre, language, historical period, gender of the protagonist, and ethnicity of the protagonist, among other elements.
• Index to Children's Book Authors and Illustrators Includes biographical articles and criticism of the author's works.
• Lu Rees Archives: Related Web Sites "These are some of the web sites that provide great information about Australian children's authors and illustrators."
• OzLit@Vicnet - Australian Authors of Children's Books Information on dozens of Australian children's authors and their books.
• Mr William Shakespeare and the Internet
  Aims to be a complete guide to scholarly Shakespeare resources on the Internet. Has links to other material on Renaissance literature.

Web Subject Directories

• Voice of the Shuttle Web page for Humanities research. Provides a structured and briefly annotated guide to online resources.
• Librarians' Index to the Internet A searchable, annotated subject directory of described and evaluated Internet resources.
• About - the human Internet Comprehensive coverage of literature sites

Electronic Texts and Book Reviews

• Electronic Texts Links to a range of etext sites.
• Book Reviews A select number of book review sites.

Reference

• My Virtual Reference Desk And more! It seems to have everything including quick reference and is updated weekly. A large site.
• Dictionaries Choose from a list of individual online dictionaries or dictionary sites.
• Encyclopedias Choose from a list of encyclopedias/factbooks.
• Roget's Internet Thesaurus