Librarian
Zotero (for Citation Management)
Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is a Firefox addon that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Word or OpenOffice. It is easier to use than RefWorks and surprisingly powerful.
Since it's a Firefox plugin, it automatically updates itself periodically to work with new online sources and new bibliographic styles.
Zotero Guide
You can learn more about Zotero by readng the Zotero Guide created here at Baylor, or you can also see this great guide published by the Zotero developers themselves. Also available as a PDF.
Finding Primary Sources
To find primary sources, perform an author search in OneSearch.
You can use OneSearch to find primary sources. You can do a keyword search for the name of the person, but a more focused way to search for biographical sources is to choose "Library Catalog" at the top of the search page, choose "Author/Creator" from the drop down list, and then put the name of the person in the search box in this format "LastName, FirstName" (ex. "Allende, Isabel").
The results will be all the materials we have in the library that are authored by that person.
Some additional options for finding primary sources:
- Biblioteca virtual Miguel de Cervantes This link opens in a new windowProvides access to a digital library project (hosted and maintained by the University of Alicante in Alicante, Spain) that comprises the largest open-access repository of digitized Spanish-language historical texts and literature from the Ibero-American world. Contains over 30 000 works of the most significant authors in Spanish and Latin American literary history. As well as literary works, author biographies, and links to secondary materials, the library features academic theses, readings of literary works, scholarly journals, and much more.
- Columbia Granger's world of poetry This link opens in a new window
Contains over 250 000 poems in full text and 450 000 citations, numbers that will continually expand with each update. The poems in full text are the most widely-read in the English language, as well as in Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Included also is poetry in Portuguese, Polish, Yiddish, Welsh, Gaelic, and other Celtic languages, as well as poems in the ancient languages: Anglo-Saxon, Provencal, and Latin. Indexes poetry in published anthologies, with citations providing poem title, author, publisher, subject(s), and a list of anthologies in which the selected poem appears, includes brief biographies of poets and some commentary.
Finding Background Information
To get scholarly biographical or background information on an author or a literary work or movement, search one of these databases, which also can be found in print in the reference section.
- Dictionary of literary biography This link opens in a new windowPresents systematically, career biographies and criticisms of writers from all eras and all genres through volumes dedicated to specific types of literature and time periods. Contains articles on literary authors from throughout the world.
- Britannica online This link opens in a new window
Consists of a fully searchable and browsable collection of authoritative references, including Britannica's latest article database, articles not yet in the print Britannica, Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (tenth edition), the Britannica book of the year, as well as news articles from BBC News and The New York Times.
- Credo ReferenceIf the Dictionary of Literary Biography doesn't turn up any results for your author, please search Credo Reference, where you may be able to find a good biography from another reference book such as a literary dictionary or encyclopedia.
You can also find background/biographical information in OneSearch by performing a subject search.
You can use OneSearch to find primary sources. You can do a keyword search for the name of the person, but a more focused way to search for biographical sources is to choose "Library Catalog" at the top of the search page, choose "Subject" from the drop down list, and then put the name of the person in the search box in this format "LastName, FirstName" (ex. "Allende, Isabel") and then choose "Subject" on the next line and put in the term "Biography".
The results will be all the materials we have in the library that are biographies of that particular person.
Finding Criticism
To find criticism of a literary work, search the MLA International Bibliography for your topic, author or literary work. You can combine keywords (i.e. "Candide" and "utopia") to limit your list of results. You can also limit your results by language.
While searching the MLA will most likely provide you with a good set of results, there are a few other Spanish language databases listed here which can sometimes provide some good results too. These databases are not only for literature, so you may have to wade through extraneous results.
- MLA international bibliography This link opens in a new windowProvides a subject, author, and title index for books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. MLA indexers review books, journals, and Web sites for material that relates to all forms of human communication. Coverage includes literature from all over the world--Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. Folklore is represented by folk literature, music, art, rituals, and belief systems. Linguistics and language materials range from history and theory of linguistics, comparative linguistics, semantics, stylistics, and syntax to translation. Other topics include literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater), and history of printing and publishing. EBSCOhost.
- JSTORJSTOR consists of the backfiles of more than a hundred journal titles in various fields, including Language and Literature and European Studies
You can also find literary criticism on your author or work in OneSearch by performing a subject search with this formula
You can use OneSearch to find primary sources. You can do a keyword search for the name of the person, but a more focused way to search for biographical sources is to choose "Library Catalog" at the top of the search page, choose "Subject" from the drop down list, and then put the name of the person in the search box in this format "LastName, FirstName" (ex. "Allende, Isabel") and then choose "Subject" on the next line and put in the term "Criticism and Interpretation".
The results will be all the materials we have in the library that are biographies of that particular person.
