Barnard College Library Research Guide
Fall 2003
BC1201: First Year English
Reinventing Literary History

I The Legacy of the Mediterranean; II The Americas; III Women and Culture

Link to English Department page for BC1201
Reference Books
Using CLIO to Find Books
Using Indexes & Databases to Find Articles
Using the World Wide Web

 

REFERENCE BOOKS
Encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference books are useful for:

The reference books in this list are available in the Barnard Library reference area on the second floor.      

  

Title           

Barnard Reference 
Call Number 
General Oxford Classical Dictionary DE5 .O9 2003
Oxford Companion to Classical Literature PA31 .H69 1989
Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory  PN41 .C83 1998   
Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs    PN43 .D48 1988   
The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States PS147 .O94 1995
Oxford Companion to African American Literature PS153 .N5 O96 1997   

Subject
Encyclopedias

 Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain, 1780-1830s DA529 .E53 1992
Encyclopedia of the Victorian World DA550 .E53 1996   
Victorian Britain: an Encyclopedia DA550 .V53 1988 
Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome DE59 .C55 1988
Encyclopedia of European Social History  HN373 .E63 2001  
Women's Studies Encyclopedia HQ1115 .W645 1999
Encyclopedia of Allegorical Literature PN56.A5 L44 1996
Encyclopedia of the Novel  PQ7081 .A1 E56 1997

Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia Of American Literature 

PS21 .B46 1991  
Encyclopedia of American Literature PS21 .E53 1999
Criticism    LC: Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800   PN86 .L56  
CMLC: Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism PN681.5 .C57
NCLC: Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism PN761 .N56     
CLC: Contemporary Literary Criticism    PN771 .C59    
TCLC: Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism    PN771 .G27      
PC: Poetry Criticism PN1010 .P499    
Critical Survey of Poetry       PN1021 .C7 2002      
SSC: Short Story Criticism            PN3373 .S56     
SC: Shakespearean Criticism       PR2965 .S43      
Biographical  Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome    PA3002 .A5 1982 
European Authors, 1000-1900       PN451 .K8      
European Writers       PN501 .E9 1983   
British Writers       PR85 .B688      
American Writers       PS129 .A55      
DLB: Dictionary of Literary Biography      PS129 .D5      
American Women Writers    PS147 .A4   

Additional resources for individual classes:
Prof. Auran's class, 10/13/03
Prof. Olsen's class, 10/13/03
Prof. Pfeiffer's class, 10/15/03
Prof. Farmer's class, 10/15/03
Prof. Cregan's class, 10/16/03
Prof. Cynn's class, 10/16/03
Prof. Pan's class, 10/16/03
Prof. Richard's class, 10/20/03, 1:10 p.m.
Prof. Richard's class, 10/20/03, 4:10 p.m.
Prof. Fleischer's classes, 10/21/03
Prof. Levin's class, 10/21/03
Prof. Ratekin's class, 10/23/03
Prof. Baechler's class, 10/23/03
Prof. Vandenburg's class, 10/23/03
Prof. Mehta's class, 10/27/03

 

USING CLIO TO FIND BOOKS AND JOURNALS     

You can enter CLIO from the Barnard Library home page or from the Columbia University LibraryWeb.

Other Library Catalogs
Those with Columbia ID have access to the libraries of Teachers’ College, Columbia Law School and Union Theological Seminary, but they are not included in CLIO; use the Catalogs list on CU LibraryWeb, or the following links:
  • EDUCAT for Teachers’ College Library
  • Sophia for Union Theological Seminary Library
  • Pegasus for Columbia Law Library
  • CATNYP for New York Public Library research branches

 
USING INDEXES AND DATABASES TO FIND PERIODICAL ARTICLES                            
These indexes and databases are all on the Databases list on the Barnard Library homepage.  All are available only to those with a Columbia University ID.
 
Searching Basics:
  • Keyword searching in some databases requires the use of Boolean terms - AND or OR between the search terms, or quotes to search for a phrase 
  • Truncation in Keyword searching expands a search term to find all forms of a root word, e.g. feminis* finds feminism, feminist, and feminists 
  • Look at the Help files for a database to get more details on how to search 
  • Click on "e-link" next to a citation to find out if an article is online, or do a title search in CLIO using the title of the journal in which the article appears.
Humanities Abstracts      
  • Citations and abstracts for articles, book reviews, etc. in archaeology, art, classics, film, folklore, journalism, linguistics, music, performing arts, philosophy, religion, world history and world literature, from 1984 to the present
  • There are many book reviews in this database; it might be best to limit Record Type to "Articles"
  • When you find a useful article, click on one of the descriptors to find other articles on that subject
  • To e-mail results to yourself, click on the "E-mail" button at the top   
JSTOR      
  • A full text database of articles from over 320 scholarly journals, from the beginning of the journal but excluding the most recent 3-5 years; includes African American studies, anthropology, classical studies,  education, history, language and literature, philosophy, political science, sociology and more        
  • Only the science and social science articles have abstracts, so searching in the title is the most direct search for articles in humanities journals; searching for a term in the full text of an article will often find too many irrelevant articles     
LION: Literature Online    
  • A library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama, and prose, plus biographies, bibliographies, and key secondary sources, dating from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 20th century
  • To find critical articles click on "Search criticism and reference"  
MLA Bibliography       
  • Citations for articles, dissertations, books, book chapters, etc. on literature, linguistics, language, and folklore, published from 1963 to the present   
  • Dissertations (other than Columbia) have to be ordered from the appropriate university, and may not be as useful as journal articles; it might be best to limit Document Type to Journals  
ProQuest Direct  
  • Full text articles and citations for articles from newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals  
  • For scholarly journals, click on "Databases selected" at top, clear all databases and select "Research Library", click on "Continue" at top, and select Advanced Search 
Women's Studies International    
  • Citations for articles on women's studies, gender studies, feminist theory and criticism, published from 1972 to the present 
  • To change from split screen to full screen, and for other options, click on "Change Search & Display Level"

 

FINDING INFORMATION ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB                               

Subject Guides to the Internet on the Barnard and Columbia Libraries Homepages                            

The Subject Guides to Online Resources page, available on the Barnard Library homepage, includes subject guides on art, history, literature, politics, ready reference, science, theater, women's studies, etc.   

The Literature Guide lists many useful resources and includes links to:
  • A Celebration of Women Writers - a collection of texts and information by and about women writers 
  • Online Literary Criticism Collection - contains links to over 4,000 critical and biographical websites about authors and their works      
  • Voice of the Shuttle - a huge collection of links to web pages for humanities research, including literature of all periods, history, linguistics, media studies, philosophy, etc.                     

The Subject Guides page, available from the Columbia University LibraryWeb page, includes links to African-American Studies, American Studies, Electronic Text Resources, Humanities & History, Latin American Studies, Women's Studies, and many other topics.

Evaluation Criteria for Websites - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources
 

Writing, Planning and Researching Help Available on the Web                                       

The Columbia LibraryWeb page Library Research Guides includes a link to the Bedford Handbook  by Diana Hacker, and information on citation styles.

A Guide for Writing Research Papers based on Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines is available online.

For help with selecting a topic, writing an outline, dealing with writer’s block, etc., consult the MIT Writing Center or the Paradigm Online Writing Assistant.          

 

OTHER LIBRARY SERVICES                 

Consultation with a Reference Librarian: Complete a Consultation Request Form you can e-mail to the library requesting a consultation on your research.

Live Chat Reference: Monday through Friday, 1 - 5 p.m., you can chat online with a Columbia or Barnard librarian.  Click on the Ask Us Now link on the Barnard Library homepage or on Columbia LibraryWeb.

The Reference Desk: on the second floor of Barnard Library.  We'll be happy to help you find additional information.  E-mail us at refdesk@barnard.edu or call 212-854-3953.           

Research Skills Worksheet: Click here for a Research Skills Worksheet to print out which will enable you to test and improve your library research skills.

 

Last Modified 10/21/03
Lois Coleman, Karen Dobrusky and Jenna Freedman, Reference Librarians
Barnard College Library