Databases, Journals & Encyclopedias
ECSU
Databases
MLA
The MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB), published by the Modern
Language Association, covers scholarship published since 1963 in literature,
linguistics, folklore, literary theory and, since 1998, rhetoric and composition.
It is also an important resource for the non-technical aspects of theater
and film studies, cultural studies, critical theory, and the history of printing
and publishing. MLAIB does not cover scholarship in Greek, Latin,
and other ancient languages and literatures. Only bibliographic citations
are included; there are no abstracts. Citations are primarily to journal articles,
books, essays in multi-author collections, dissertations, and conference proceedings.
Book and performance reviews are not included. Coverage for the years 1921-1962
is available only in print and the Library has 1969-1987 and 1989-1991 in
Reference Z7006.M64. The electronic version offers easy searching by keyword,
author, and subject (characters, literary themes, etc.).
Caveat! MLAIB is not a full-text database. However, most citations
are accompanied by a link, which will help you determine which CSU Libraries
own the documents referred to by the citations.
If you get results that look like the one below, despite the reference to
the library catalog, none of the CSU Libraries own this book or journal. You
may order the book or journal via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) but it will take
at least 7-10 days (perhaps 2 weeks):
Interlibrary
Loan (ILL)
You can request a book from another CSU library by using the 
button in CONSULS (you must be in the record for the book in order to access
this feature).
If you need to request journal articles from any other source, or books from non-CSU libraries, you can use the online forms provided on the Library website. Go to the Library home page and rest your mouse on Library Services (see illustration below). You'll see a drop-down menu; click on Interlibrary Loan:
On the Interlibrary Loan page, you can read the policies and access online
forms for journals or books:
Photocopies of journal articles are $.10/page. You will be notified by telephone
or e-mail (you select this option on the form) when the books or journal articles
arrive. Interlibrary Loan books and journal articles may be picked up at the
Circulation Desk. You can also fill out paper ILL forms at the Reference Desk.
Several key Shakespeare publications are available via Academic Search Elite:
Academic Search Elite provides full text for more than 1,715 academic, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for 2,794 journals. More than 1,880 journals are peer reviewed. Full text backfiles go as far back as January of 1990, while indexing and abstract backfiles go as far back as January of 1984.
Let's try a search. Put the name of the play in quotation marks. Don't limit to Full Text or CSU journals. We can get you the full text for any journals not available at Eastern.
The default search provides hits sorted by date; use the Sort by feature to sort by relevance:
Click on the title link to access the abstract and Subject(s); a bibliography from Shakespeare Quarterly is a treasure trove of information:
If you get a link to CONSULS, the CSU Online Catalog, one of the CSU Libraries owns this book or journal; click on the link to find out which CSU Library owns the journal:
Here's what the record looks like in CONSULS:
ECSU
SERIALS - PAPER will be found on the 1st Floor in the Serials Stacks as a
Bound Periodical; ECSU SERIALS - MICROFICHE (or MICROFILM) will be found on
the 1st Floor in the Microfiche (or Microfilm) cases. Ask for help finding/using
microform at the 1st Floor Service Desk.
If you see the results illustrated below, the full text of the article can
be accessed online.When you have the choice of HTML Full Text or PDF Full
Text, select PDF (scan from journal):
The Link to JSTOR Full Text will take you into JSTOR to access the full text article:
You
can restrict your search to a specific journal; if you search with the journal
title, Explicator, you can access the full text of an important tool
for literary criticism. Concentrating on works that are frequently anthologized
and studied in college classrooms, Explicator publishes concise notes
on passages in prose or poetry. Each issue contains between 25 and 30 notes
delving into the meaning of passages of literature from the classics to postmodernism
from literatures throughout the world. Published quarterly, this journal offers
explications of a wide array of classic and contemporary literary works.
Arts & Humanities Search (AHSearch)
Arts
& Humanities Search (AHSearch) is a citation database with records
from leading arts and humanities journals. Indexes articles, bibliographies,
editorials, letters, and more. The database includes over 1300 journal titles,
coverage began in 1980 and the database is updated weekly.
When you see the icon and text, Eastern Connecticut State University (see below), the journal or book title is part of our collection.
Caveat! For journal articles, be sure to check CONSULS for dates owned by
the Library.
An excellent feature of the FirstSearch family of databases is the ability to run your search among additional databases from your original search screen:
When
you click on Books, you run your search on WorldCat, which contains
over 42 million bibliographic records representing 400 languages (so you might
want to limit your search to English). Records include books, videos, reviewed
Internet sources, kits, sound recordings, serials, maps and scores. It also
includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century. Coverage began
in 1980 and the database is updated daily. If we don't have the item you need
here in the Library, you can order it via ILL.
When you click on Articles, you run a search on ArticleFirst, a citation
database, which indexes article citations in various areas including business,
humanities, medicine, popular culture, science, social sciences and technology.
Most sources are in English, but coverage is international. Coverage includes
12,500 titles, coverage started in 1990 and is updated daily.
You can also change databases within the FirstSearch family by using
the Search in database feature:
Humanities
Index
Humanities Index is an interdisciplinary index, covering archaeology,
philosophy, art, journalism religion, classics, linguistics, film, music history,
folklore, performing arts, literature and more. Covers 1984-present. Updated
monthly.
Expanded Academic ASAP includes articles from scholarly and general interest publications covering a broad range of subjects including science and technology, current events, social sciences, the arts and humanities, and more. Dates of Coverage: 1998-present. Updated weekly. As this database includes popular magazines, limit your search to refereed publications:
Results include a link to Google's image search:
Some citations provide an abstract only but many are availble full text:
The Dictionary of Literary Biography online contains biographical information
and critical essays about nearly 10,000 North American, Modern European, Commonwealth,
and postcolonial authors. While coverage is mostly Eighteenth Century to present
(varies by region), it includes two excellent critical essays on Shakespeare
with links to his contemporaries, later critics, and sources. Updated annually.
"William
Shakespeare," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 172: Sixteenth-Century
British Nondramatic Writers, Fourth Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book.
Edited by David A. Richardson, Cleveland State University. The Gale Group,
1996, pp. 217-237.
"William Shakespeare," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 62: Elizabethan Dramatists. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Fredson Bowers, University of Virginia. The Gale Group, 1987, pp. 267-353.
Historical Abstracts provides coverage of historical and related social science literature from international journals, dissertations, and books. Topical coverage includes all areas of the world except North America from about 1450-present. Dates of Coverage: 1955-present Updated monthly. Select Advanced Search and limit to English:
Results:
Tag
(mark) desired results and click on 
.
Select ASCII to print or enter your E-mail information and click Submit:
Iter's
bibliography covers all literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
(400-1700). Citations for journal articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies,
catalogues, abstracts and discographies are included. Also included are citations
for monographs, and material published in monographs and collections of essays.
Click on
Click on 
Click
on Advanced Search:
Enter keyword Hamlet and scroll down.
Use the drop-down menu to select English and other options (type of article):
Dates:
Sort:
click
Search button: 
This is also a citation-only database.
JSTOR is an archive of core scholarly journals in cross-disciplinary fields such as anthropology, economics, mathematics, and the arts and sciences. JSTOR is an acronym for Journal STORage and the focus is on older volumes rather than current issues. The coverage starts from first issues and runs up to between 1 and 7 years before current publication. Some journals are archived back to 1800s. Updated Monthly.
Click
on to 
get started.
There are 3 steps to JSTOR searches:
1. Enter your search terms:
2. Select your discipline:
3.
Click on 
Select Highest scoring items first:
Click to access full text article:
Options
for 
Print Options: 
Download Options:
Save Citations: 
The Gale Literary Index is an invaluable tool; you can search by author,
title, or even customize your search. The resulta reveal which print sources
contain literary criticism on your play or on Shakespeare. Most of the print
sources are available in Smith Library's Reference collection:
Results:
Your results include 17th, 18th and 19th Century criticism:
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
The
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the most useful English dictionary
for Shakespeare studies, because it provides definitions that would have been
current in Shakespeare's day. The online version of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Contains the complete text of the 20 volume second edition published in 1989,
with 3 volume additions vols. 1-2 (1993) and vol.3 (1997). Includes definitions
of words from their earliest recorded use. Updated quarterly.
How to search:
If you want to find OED's definition of a word or phrase, enter it in the box at the top right of each page, labelled Find Word. Alternatively, full-text searching of all OED's definitions, etymologies, and quotations is available through the Search function at the bottom left of each page.
The Scribner Writers Series
The Scribner Writers Series contains 1600 full-text essays on writers
and their work. Essays include selected bibliographies for further study of
an author. Coverage of selected writers from ancient times to 20th century.
Last updated 1998.
The link above takes you directly to an authoritative survey which includes Shakespear's Intellectual And Theatrical Background, Early Shakespeare, Early Histories, Early Comedies, Early Tragedies, Later Histories And Major Comedies, Unromantic Comedies And Later Tragedies, Later Tragedies, Late Shakespeare, The Publication Of Shakespeare's Works, Shakespeare In Performance, Shakespeare's Critics and, most significant, an extensive, selected Bibliography including Bibliographies, Collected Editions, Textual Studies, Reference Works And Periodicals, Biographical Studies, Sources, Influences, And Background Studies, Language And Style, Shakespeare's Theater, Shakespeare In The Post-Restoration Theater, General Critical Studies, Critical Studies Of The Comedies, Critical Studies Of The English History Plays and Critical Studies Of The Tragedies And Roman Plays.
Online version of Twayne's U.S. Authors, Twayne's English Authors, and Twayne's World Authors. It provides literary critical interpretation and discussion of nearly 600 authors and their works, as well as literary movements and genres. Information about authors, ancient to modern. Updated annually. Extensive essays on each major comedy, history play, problem play, romance and tragedy.
Select from the following links:
19th
Century Masterfile is a collection of indexes to over 1 million citations
from newspapers, periodicals, books, and government documents written before
1920. Indexes include: Poole's Index to Periodical Literature 1802-1907 and
Stead's Index to Periodical Literature 1890-1906.
You can use the following limiters; especially note exact phrase and
Limit by Date:
This is also a citation-only database.
Library PIN Code: Accessing the databases from off-campus
When you click on each database link from off-campus, you will get the dialog box pictured below. Enter your Student ID Number and your Library PIN Code.
If you don't have a PIN Code, follow the link below; if you get an Invalid PIN message, call or stop by the Circulation Desk, ask them to delete your PIN, and follow the directions to set up a new PIN:
Free Web Databases
Gale's Glossary of Literary Terms
Results: 
Electronic Journals
Early Modern Literary Studies, from the University of British Columbia, is a refereed journal serving as a formal arena for scholarly discussion and as an academic resource for researchers in the area. Articles in EMLS examine English literature, literary culture, and language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; responses to published papers are also published as part of a Readers' Forum. Reviews evaluate recent work as well as academic tools of interest to scholars in the field. EMLS is committed to gathering and to maintaining links to the most useful and comprehensive internet resources for Renaissance scholars, including archives, electronic texts, discussion groups, and beyond.
Renaissance Forum is an interdisciplinary refereed journal. It specialises in early-modern English literary and historical scholarship and in the critical methodologies of these fields. The journal is published biannually by an editorial board based in the Departments of English and History at the University of Hull.
Its aim is twofold: to offer a platform for work of the highest scholarly standard in an electronic medium, and to provide a forum for scholarly and theoretical debate of a kind that is not possible in most conventional journals. It will include reviews of major publications.
Renaissance
Forum is indexed by Historical Abstracts.
The following print journals have web sites, but are not true e-journals:
Cahiers Élisabéthains publishes articles and reviews on
all aspects of the English Renaissance. The term is given its broadest connotation:
subjects have ranged from Chaucer to Restoration drama and beyond. The literature
and drama of the Elizabethan period is, however, the focal point of our interests.
Theatre and book reviews are regular features and a discography of English
Renaissance music is occasionally published. Cahiers Elisabethains
is a journal from the Universite Paul Valery at Montpellier.
Exemplaria is a Medieval and Renaissance studies journal from Florida. Their website has information on the contents of specific issues, subcriptions and submissions. Exemplaria is indexed and/or abstracted in the MLA International Bibliography.
Encyclopædia Britannica is both a database and an electronic encyclopedia.
Results include myriad links:
Back
to The World of Shakespeare: A Research Guide
WHEN YOU NEED ADDITIONAL HELP, PLEASE STOP BY OR PHONE THE REFERENCE DESK (54699).
Good
luck with your research!
Page created and maintained by Susan Herzog, Eastern Connecticut State University. Last update: 10/9/03. Broken links or suggestions? Please e-mail Susan.