Expanded coverage in Literary Reference Center

googler@evpl — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:37:00 GMT

We recently expanded our online literary resources when EBSCO upgraded Literary Reference Center to Literary Reference Center Plus. This new database offers additional reference works, literary journals, new contemporary literature titles, full-text literary study guides, audio content, and videos. This additional content, blended with the specialized and easy-to-use, browsable interface, creates an authoritative literary tool for users.

Literary Reference Center Plus includes all of the content currently in Literary Reference Center as well as more than 1,100 full-text literary reference books and works focusing on plays, drama, poetry, and religious, children’s and Hispanic literature. LRC Plus also presents a focus on multicultural studies, folklore, mythology, Latin American literature and historical literature by offering more than 125 literary magazines and journals in these areas. Thirty-five extensive
volumes of new reference content on contemporary literature from Salem Press also contribute to this new resource relating to fantasy/science fiction, contemporary literature, world philosophy, and biographies of Nobel Literature Prize winners.

Users of Literary Reference Center Plus will also have access to 40 full-text literary study guides to help explore novels and plays in American and English literature and to better understand the characteristics of different forms of literature. The database also contains 74 literary videos pertaining to classic literary works and authors.

Like other browsable/GUI databases in the EBSCO family, this interface uses tabs. Your result list defaults to "all results," but note the tab for "literary criticism," which is what many students will be after. (I'm a little disappointed that although media has been added to the database, there isn't a tab for audio/video. Use advanced search to limit to "multimedia/study guides.") Also, keep an eye on the "full text" notation of your results. As with other EBSCO databaes, some results are available in full-text in the database, but some are citation/abstract only -- these may or may not be in EVPL's collection (but if not, they can be requested via interlibrary loan).

The databases can be accessed by cardholders via our database page, in the "Literature" category. As always, please call your branch library or Central Library Reference (428-8218) if you have any questions about using this or any database.

"Big Brown Books" Now Available on Your Home Computer

Bufkinite@evpl — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:42:00 GMT

How many of you were given an assignment in a high school or college literature course to find "critical reviews" of some obscure author, and despaired of finding anything meaningful before you found - or were directed to by a librarian - the gold mine of the "Big Brown Books"? Actually different series, entitled Contemporary Literary Criticism, Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, these books compile information from a number of literary journals and poetry magazines, and arrange them by author. Each title now runs to well over 100 volumes, and Central Library has a complete run of all three titles.

But now comes Literature Criticism Online, and all volumes are available online through EVPL's databases page. So, not only can you browse them from the public computers at any of the EVPL branches, you can browse them from home, 24/7!

Logging in to Literature Criticism Online presents you with options for a basic or advanced search. Below is a screenshot of the Basic Search window, and you can see there are tabs for an advanced search, as well as for browsing by author, or by work. You can limit your search to one of the titles, e.g. Contemporary Literary Criticism, or choose to search all held titles with one search. The drop-down menu beside the search box allows you to search by keyword, full text, named author, or named work.

Search results present you with a list of links to pdf versions of the original print materials, so that what you find online is visually identical to what you would find in the original printed books. There are cases where copyright restrictions end up presenting the message "Text Not Viewable Online," but they are very few and far between.

So check out Literature Criticism Online, look up your favorite author or work, and find out what the critics had to say!

Research Blog : databases, literature

Expanded coverage in Literary Reference Center

"Big Brown Books" Now Available on Your Home Computer