Guide to Resources for Literature

Reference Books

Reference books are a good place to start research. They can help you find background information, choose topics, and understand concepts and terminology. To access online resources from off campus you will need a your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password; host provider students may obtain a login from the instructor or librarian.

Printed reference books

Dictionaries define specialized terms, identify important figures and concepts, and explain symbols. The most general dictionaries of literary terms are found under 803 in the Dewey Decimal Classification. Most printed dictionaries are in the Reference area of the library near the entrance.

Subject (or specialized) encyclopedias are an excellent place to start a research project. Specialized encyclopedias, which cover a single subject area, have longer and more detailed treatments of subjects than either dictionaries or general encyclopedias. Subject encyclopedias on various literatures are available in Reference.

There are numerous other aids are found in the reference collection under the Dewey Decimal Classification numbers 801-899. Please see the Special Guides below for reference materials in specific types of literature.

Some electronic books for reference

NetLibrary

To access these books from off campus you will need your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password). The books listed here are only a few of those available. To search for others, go to NetLibrary.

• Notable African American writers
• The age of Milton: an encyclopedia of major 17th-century British and American authors
• Asian American short story writers:an A-to-Z guide
• Notable Latino writers
• The Hutchinson encyclopedia of literature
• The chronology of American literature [electronic resource] : America's literary achievements from the colonial era to modern times

Oxford Reference

The Oxford Reference Online database has reference books on literature, as well as dictionaries of English and other helpful reference books.

To access these books from off campus you will need you My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password.

Finding other books and and audiovisual materials

Use the library catalog to look for additional materials. The Chemeketa catalog page includes instructions on using the catalog and on requesting materials through the catalog. There are also links to other library catalogs. You can search by key words, by authors, or by subject headings. A suggestion on where to find subject headings to use in the catalog is given below.

The Library of Congress has a Web site where you can search for subject headings. When you put in a search term, the results will list terms in a table. Those with a red button marked, "Authorized and references" are terms that the Library of Congress uses in subject catalogs. Clicking the button may show more specific ("narrower") terms.

Fig. 1. The catalog search

You may have to do several searches to find books that might be pertinent to your subject.

If you live in the Chemeketa Cooperative Regional Library Service (CCRLS) district, you may also access the catalog online at your local public library. In addition to the books in the Chemeketa College Library, the catalog also contains the collections of the 17 public libraries located in the regional library district. You can request books through the catalog, and can pass your search through to Summit (see below).

Summit

Chemeketa students registered for credit may use Summit, the Orbis Cascade Alliance catalog, to request items from 34 member libraries in Oregon and Washington. Summit uses a search called WorldCat. Authorized users have access to all of the material in the Chemeketa Community College library, plus about 28 million items in Summit. Chemeketa users may request items using the barcode number from their ID card, and have them sent to Chemeketa, or they may set up a Visiting Patron account at another Alliance library.

• Summit: http://summit.worldcat.org/
• How to use Summit: http://library.chemeketa.edu/information/Summit.htm
• More Summit Help: http://www.oclc.org/worldcatlocal/help/default.htm
• Libraries & Map: http://orbiscascade.org/map/

Databases & Indexes

All the electronic databases listed in this section may be accessed by going to the library's Database Page. If you are accessing the databases from a computer not on the Chemeketa Community College network, you will need your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password.

Journal Article Databases

Online indexes

Academic OneFile [Gale]  How to use

Index to periodicals, including thousands of peer-reviewed, abstracted and indexed journals, many which are in full text.

Literature Resource Center   How to use

Over 70,000 selected full-text critical essays and reviews from

• Contemporary Literary Criticism,
• Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism,
• Literature Criticism from 1400-1800,
• Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism,
• Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism,
• Drama Criticism,
• Poetry Criticism,
• Shakespearean Criticism,
• Short Story Criticism,
• Children's Literature Review

Also includes: biographies on more than 130,000 authors; more than 7,000 overviews of frequently studied works, more than 650,000 full-text articles, critical essays and reviews from over 300 scholarly journals and literary magazines; nearly 30,000 full-text poems, short stories and plays; Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature; and more.
    Coverage:
    Title list
    Updated: daily

Special Guides

• Finding Literary Criticism for ENG104 (Introduction To Fiction)
• Library Resources for Introduction to Dramatic Literature (ENG105)
• Poetry: Library Resources (ENG106)
• Shakespeare: Library Resources (ENG201)
• Tolkien Sources (ENG221)

Internet Sites

See Useful Sites for Literature.

Library Home Page | Chemeketa Community College | Search Library Web Site

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