• Academic Search Premier
  Coverage: large interdisciplinary database that includes over 4000 full-text articles from all scholarly disciplines, including humanities subjects such as archaeology, art, communications, drama, film, folklore, history, humanities, language, literature, music, philosophy, photography and religion. Some full-text articles available.
  Years covered: 1975 - present (varies by title).
  
  
• Modern Language Association Bibliography
  Coverage: indexes about 3000 journals and series published worldwide, monographs, working papers and proceedings, and bibliographies pertaining to criticism, drama, folklore, and modern (not ancient) languages and literature. Some full-text articles available.
  Years covered: 1963 - present
  
  
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (in Web of Science)
  Coverage: indexes over 1100 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. Can be combined with other Web of Science citation indexes (Social Sciences, Sciences) for an even broader search.
  Years covered: 1975 - present.
  
  
• Dissertation Abstracts
  Coverage: indexes dissertations accepted for doctoral degrees by accredited North American educational insitutions and more than 200 institutions elsewhere; some coverage of Masters degrees.

• English Short Title Catalogue
  Coverage: 460,000 items published between 1473 and 1800 mainly in Britain and North America. This material is from the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries.
  

• Twayne's Authors Series (included in Literature Resource Center )
  "The Twayne Authors Series offers criticism by scholars on hundreds of years of literature--from Aristophanes to Bharati Mukherjee. It provides critical introductions to the lives and works of writers, to the history and influence of literary movements, or the development of literary genres. Primarily devoted to critical interpretation and discussion of authors' works, these studies take account of major literary trends and important contributions to scholarship and criticism, and provide new critical insights and original points of view. Each treatment of an author averages from 175 to 200 pages in length."
  
  
• Scribners Writers Series (included in Literature Resource Center )
  "This database includes some 1,600 full-text articles on writers and literary genres drawn from thirteen acclaimed print sets. Each signed article was written by a noted scholar and concludes with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources for further study. "
  
  
• Literary Criticism series (portions included in Literature Resource Center)
  Sets are generally devoted to particular time periods (e.g., Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Contemporary Literary Criticism) and provide excerpts of critical essays on particular works from the time of publication to the present.
  

Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 REF. PN700.5 .L57
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism REF. PN761 .N5
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism REF. PN771 .T835
Contemporary Literary Criticism REF. PN771 .C59
Black Literature Criticism REF. PS153 .N5 B556 1992
Short Story Criticism REF. PN3373 .S386
Shakespearean Criticism REF. PR2965 .S43

• Dictionary of Literary Biography (included in Literature Resource Center)
  Ref. PN771 .D54. Provides major bio-critical essays writers in English, including non-canonical writers. The Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook summarizes publications fo rthe year and also discusses conferences, literary awards, and includes obituaries and interviews.
  
  
• Contemporary Authors (portions included in Literature Resource Center)
  Ref. PN771. C586. This sources provides biographical information and bibliographical reference on a wide-ranging group of writers, including non-literary types such as journalists and academic authors. International in scope.
  

• Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
  This resource contains entries for authors, works, literary landmarks, literary and critical terms, mythological and folkloric figures, fictional characters, literary movements and prizes, and more.
  
  
• A Handbook to Literature
  Ref. PN41. H6 1986. Explains literary terms, forms, movements. Also provides bibliographical references, a chronological outline of British and American literary history.
  
  
• Reader's Encyclopedia
  REF. PN41 .B4 1987. Brief entries include information on authors, movements, genres, literary devices and more. International in scope.
  
  
• The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes
  Compiled over fourteen years, from 1907 to 1921, the Cambridge History contains over 303 chapters and 11,000 pages, with essay topics ranging from poetry, fiction, drama and essays to history, theology and political writing. The set encompasses a wide selection of writing on orators, humorists, poets, newspaper columnists, religious leaders, economists, Native Americans, song writers, and even non-English writing, such as Yiddish and Creole.
  
  
• Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
  This reference source comprises over 18,000 entries that provide the etymology of words and phrases that have interesting origins.

• New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature
  Ref. PR1101. Z99 B31. This standard reference work provides a selective list of primary and secondary resources on British writers who were established by 1950. It indicates important modern editions and reprints of older texts, and serves as a supplement to the original Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, which includes more comprehensive background biblographies, and next to which it is shelved.
  
  
• Literary History of the United States: A Bibliography
  Ref. PS88. L5 1959. Original volume offers bibliographic essays on major authors and movements. The supplements offer more focused selective lists of primary and secondary bibliographies.
  
  
• Poetry Explication : A Checklist of Interpretation
  Ref. PN1031.Z99 K8 1980 This bibliography points you to articles and parts of books which explicate specific poems.
  
  
• Guide to British Poetry Explication
  Ref. PN1031.Z99 M34 1991 Each of the volumes covers a different period (Old English-Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration-Romantic) and lists critical writings on specific poems.
  
  
• English Novel Explication
  Ref. PN3463.Z99 P32 Points you to critical commentary from articles and parts of books on particular novels.
  
  
• Twentieth-Century Short Story Explication
  Ref. PN3373.Z99 W3 This bibliography points you to explicatory writings published in the twentieth century on specific short stories.

• WorldCat
  This allows you to search a giant combined database of library catalogs worldwide.
  
  
• Oxford English Dictionary
  This historical dictionary covers words from across the English-speaking world, providing etymological analysis, listings of variant spellings, pronunciation, and tracing usage in a wide array of English-language sources. This web-based version contains the complete contents of the 20-volume print Second Edition and the 3 volumes of Additions. It also contains quarterly updates and revisions, as part of an ongoing effort to revise the entire publication.
  
  
• MLA Directory of Periodicals
  This publicaton provides information about 1500 periodical and serial publications in the humanties. Entries include contact information, rules for manuscript submission, availability, descriptions of scope, subscription prices, and more.
  
  
  
• Folger ESTC (Click on "Folger ESTC", then select "Folger ESTC Database", then click "Connect")
  This database lists about 50,000 items from the Short Title Catalogue and its supplements which are held in the Folger Shakespeare Library. For titles held, the ESTC entry will include the complete bibliographic description as well as the relevant microfilm sets which contain the item (reel and reel position are included). While this does not represent the entire ESTC, it does include a large percentage of the titles. The Folger Library has the third largest collection of titles in the STC and they are sixth largest depository of items in Wing (STC II). The coverage for the 18th century is smaller.

These wide-ranging and authoritative sites serve as good starting points for literary research on the Internet.

• Voice of the Shuttle--Literature in English
  This is a very large, searchable meta-index with links to sites in many areas of literary studies.
  

• Literary Resources on the Net
  This site, which is clear and well-organized, offers a search engine and links organized by sub-categories.
  

• Humbul Humanities Hub: English Studies
  This selected, annotated collection of resources can be displayed by type of audience, by literary period, or by type of resource.
  

• Online Literary Criticism (Internet Public Library)
  Links to selected critical texts, some of which are freely available and some of which require pay-per-use or an online subscription (the library does subscribe to many of the publications). Can be browsed by author, title, or literary period.

• Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads
  "The Bodleian Library has unparalleled holdings of over 30,000 ballads in several major collections. The original printed materials range from the 16th- to the 20th-Century. The Broadside Ballads project makes the digitised copies of the sheets and ballads available to the research community."