Use Google to find the major associations for your field. Try searching for:
association "name of field"
Often the major associations in your field will have its' own journal, which will give you a starting point for compiling a list of journals to follow.
Use Google Books to find overviews of your field. Try searching for the following:
Start by searching MLA International Bibliography. Coverage goes from 1926-present. You can click here to see what exactly is covered by MLA. MLA is the most extensive database we have in terms of literature studies. This video has information on how to use some of the advanced search options in MLA
However, no one database indexes all scholarly publications. On the English guide I would also suggest searching LRC (most useful for biographical information on an author rather then scholarly research) as well as ASC, Project Muse & JSTOR(the largest interdisciplinary databases we have). Click here to see the complete list of Literature related databases. (So if your text was published in the 18th century, search the 18th century database and so on.) Think about whether scholars in other disciplines would have written on your text and search those databases as well (for example, if you are writing on Oedipus Rex, search the Classics databases as well)
If you are searching for scholarship from journals that have not been digitized, this is a slightly more complicated proposition. You will need to search in FirstSearch WorldCat to see if there are any print indexes available for the time frame you are looking for (ex. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth-Century Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers, from the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations OR Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism OR Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, etc). If we hold the print index, you can search it for mentions of your text. If we do not, you will need to request that print index though ILL. Keep in mind, if an early review of your text remains significant in the field of literature, it is likely that it will be mentioned in more recent bibliographies. Print bibliographies can also be useful.
For popular culture & film try Pop Culture Universe.(log on with netID required)
A useful public site to search is AllMovie . For the purposes of citation of a web document "if there is no author, begin the reference with the document title." Click here for the MLA handout.
You can also try searching IMDB, but biographical entries are not always cited, so be careful in using this source. This site is more useful for performance history than biographical information.
If you are searching for books that contain biographical information:
You can search our catalog for books. Type the name of the person you are looking for information on as one of your search terms, and add biography or autobiography as another search term
A: Public domain = Not protected by copyright law. Basically, if it is a U.S. government document published at any time, or if it is a text was published in the U.S. before 1923, it is in the Public Domain. Here is a chart that explains it.
This video has a really good explanation of why ONLY searching Google or Google Scholar is not the best idea when you are looking for scholarly articles.
Short reason: Copyright issues
Slightly longer explanation: You will miss out on a lot of stuff that is either: not indexed by Google because the publisher said NO!, OR it is indexed by Google but the publisher wants $$ to let you read it.
Longer explanation: Watch the video below.
If you just want to jump to the explanation of what exactly is a scholarly article (also called peer-reviewed or refereed) watch 0:23-1:00 of the video below.
After watching this video you might say: Wait! This video seems to be implying that the current way of publishing scholarly articles is not the best! Everything should be publicly indexed and available and I should be able to use Google Scholar or some other index to find and read articles! And I would agree with you, that is what it is arguing, but we are so far from that, so for now, use the library databases.
Sometimes you are just not sure how a journal is classified,andyou want to double check what kind of journal it is (popular, trade, scholarly, etc) .
Here are some ways to tell if an article is popular or scholarly from UTAustin.
You can also use the Ulrichswebdatabase to find that information. Search for the journal by title and the results will tell you how that journal is classified (is it peer reviewed or not)
These are not directions on finding the most relevant articles in this database, these are directions on how to use MLA International Bibliography to find out what journals are covering specific topics, and how to find those journals at UT Arlington Library.
Curious abut how to use the Thesaurus, MLA Directory of Periodicals, or Names as Subjects links near the top of MLA International Bibliography? Watch this video!
P.S. Click on the Maximize button to be able to see the full screen!!!
Oh, Archive.org, you are totally non non non heinous. (Note: Use Urban Dictionary at your own peril. It is a really good resource for current slang, but some things, once learned, CAN NEVER BE UNLEARNED. You have been warned.)
Okay, on to the Moving Images Archive -- the amount of content here is pretty incredible from a research perspective -- or even possibly, maybe, the perspective of entertainment. I must admit I cannot really take a look at an ephemeral film and not MST3K* it in my head.
Remember, copyright law is still in effect for most newer releases, but if a film is in the public domain, or it was created by the U.S. government, or if it was released under a Creative Commons license it can be in this archive. (Click here for the FAQ)
Here are just some of the collections (descriptions taken from the site):
Film Noir: "Expressionistic crime dramas of the 40s and 50s: tough cops and private eyes, femme fatales, mean city streets and deserted backroads, bags of loot and dirty double-crossers."
Animation & Cartoons: Contains "classic cartoons from a bygone era, Brick Films made with your favorite building toys, Machinima patched together from video games, or the artful computer animations selected for the 2001 SIGGRAPH competition"
Cultural & Academic Films: "This library of academic and cultural films features collections from the Academic Film Archive and the Media Burn Independent Film Archive, as well as a selection of documentaries created by Dorothy Fadiman." ...and more! News & Public Affairs: "An analysis of news and public affairs independent from traditional corporate media is available from this diverse video library. From Democracy Now's daily news program, to three days of TV news coverage following the 911 attacks, to Mosaic’s timely clips of Middle East newscasts, to UCSF's Tobacco Industry Videos"
* Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) was a GENIUS SHOW. We don't have any DVDs of episodes at the library, but we do have an academic text on it! (at least, one of the chapters is on it)
This is one of my favorite MST3K clips that dealt with a ephemeral film. If car commercials were still like this, I might be more interested in cars.
WorldCat is a union catalog - what that means is that not only does it have the records from UTArlington library, it also has the records from many, many other public and academic libraries worldwide (over 32 million records).
FirstSearch refers to the specific interface. There are other ways to access WorldCat (for example there is a free public version) but the directions I am going to give apply specifically to the FirstSearch interface.
This library sounds like it has a really impressive collection of authors papers and manuscripts! They just got Octavia Butler's which should be accessible in about a year. Octavia Butler is one of my favorite science fiction authors, but I can only read so much of her at a time, because it is so well written and sometimes depressing (sort of how I view Battlestar Galactica, though her works are much more internally consistent. Also, I finish books by Butler. I am stuck on season 4.5 of BSG, and apparently I am never, ever going to finish.)
The Huntington Library is in California, so that could be an issue and you have to submit an application but their collections look amazing. They have papers from Jack London, Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, and Charles Bukowski. If you can't make it out there, it looks like you can request reproductions here.
If you would like to integrate a library presence into your department or class web page, I would be happy to provide you with the code for a LibGuides widget. This code will enable you to embed LibGuides content into any web page in the same way you would embed a YouTube video or a chat widget.
I can make adjustments based on:
What color widget box you prefer (blue, gray, orange, etc.)
What size widget box you prefer (small:190 x 270 px, large:400 x 370 px or wide: 500 x 200 px) The example on this page is small: 190 x 270 px
What libguides you want included. Right now it specifically lists the English LibGuide, as well as the FAQ and Technology workshops LibGuides, but I can link to all the library LibGuides if you like.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to discuss this with you. I also check comments on the blog, so you can also leave a comment here and I will respond.
[Note: This entry was posted to support an oral presentation at the English Graduate Student Orientation. If you are in the UTA English department and have any questions, please contact me]
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