French

Library and Web resources

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

It includes:

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

Reference Material

This is a selection of useful works in the Reference Collection

Paris (World Bibliographical Series) Vol. 206	016.94436 C444p
Corsica (World Bibliographical Series) Vol. 202	016.94436 C444p
France (World Bibliographical Series) Vol. 13	016.94436 C444p
Le nouveau petit Robert: dictionnaire alphabetique et analogique de la langue francaise	443/R642n.D
Harrap's shorter French and English dictionary	443.2/H296.H
Cambridge French-English thesaurus	443.2/L242c
Bloomsbury foreign film guide	791.403/B494b
Encyclopedia of European cinema	791.4303/E56
French novelists 1900-1930 (Dictionary of literary biography v. 65)	810.3/D554/65
French novelists 1930-1960 (Dictionary of literary biography v. 72)	810.3/D554/72
Nineteenth century French fiction writers : romanticism and realism, 1800-1860 (Dictionary of literary biography v. 119)	810.3/D554/119
Nineteenth-century French fiction writers : naturalism and beyond, 1860-1900( Dictionary of literary biography v. 123)	810.3/D554/123
French dramatists 1789-1914 (Dictionary of literary biography v.192)	810.3/D554/192
Nineteenth-century French poets (DLB v.217)	810.3/D554/217
Modern French poets (DLB v.258)	810.3/D554/258
Guide to French Literature 2 vols.	840.3/L664g
Biographical dictionary of French political leaders since 1870	944.0803/B615
Dictionnaire historique de la vie politique Francaise au xx siecle	944.0803/D554
Encyclopedia of contemporary French culture	944.0803/E56.R
Special Collections material
Laperouse in the Pacific, including searches by d'Entrecasteaux, Dillon, Dumont d'Urville : an annotated bibliography	f910.492/M161
French exploration in South Australia	919.42/C777

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:

France description and travel
French language
French literature
Art, French
Authors, French
France Civilization
France intellectual life

Note that 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:

440 (French Language)
944 (History)
840- (Literature)

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.

Click here to access a list of electronic journals useful to students of French.

This is a selection of print journals you may find 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 French-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.
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 evaluate it before its publication.

Websites

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

• French Studies Web provides annotated links to scholarly web resources and includes sites of particular interest to librarians specializing in Western Europe. It does not strive for exhaustiveness. Where possible, links to high-quality, scholarly meta-sites are given.
• The French Connection The Australian National University's collection of Internet links to places and items of interest with a French theme. It is designed for students of French and for francophiles in general. There are also some corresponding Australian links, more of which are gradually being added.
• French Internet Bistro The French Department at Flinders University has a Web page with links that range from language studies and online newspapers to culture and cuisine.
• Tennessee Bob's Famous French Links from the University of Tennessee cover useful areas.
• French Resources on the World Wide Web is a comprehensive site produced by Alan Keig from the University of Adelaide.
• French Home Page created and maintained by Professor Emeritus Jim Becker from the University of Northern Iowa.