Finding Information about Authors

Literature Resource Center

Literature Resource Center, available to Chemeketa students and staff, consists of literary criticism, biographies, and periodical articles.

Access:  http://library.chemeketa.edu/information/database.htm. To access databases from off campus you will need your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password.

Basic Searching

Enter author's name (last name, first name) in the Person space and click on Search.

Click the Biographies Tab on the results page to display biographical results.

When you click on the title of an article, you will see a page that has the full text of the article. At the top is a description of the article and a box that contains links for e-mailing, printing, and making a citation.

Reference Resources

There are many reference books in the library that have biographical and critical information about authors. Although reference books do not check out, you can make photocopies in the Copy Room.

Here are some other books you might try for information about authors:

Using the Library Catalog

The library catalog is used to help you find materials in the library. The catalog can be used to find information about an author or books by an author.

When searching for information about an author, start with a Subject search. An example of a Subject search is given below. Notice that the name should be typed in the order surname, comma, first name:

When searching for books written by an author, use an Author search. An example of an Author search is given below:

Note: If you are using the "generic" CCRLS catalog, click on the Author or Subject links in the sidebar to do the same search.

Finding Articles

The library has many indexes to magazines available in paper or electronically from our library home page (Click "Article Indexes and Databases" to reach the database page.)

If you are accessing these databases from off campus, you will need your My Chemeketa username and password.

A good database to start with is Academic Onefile, available on the database page.

To search for information in the database, start Academic Onefile and click on the Browse Subjects link in the toolbar banner.

1. Type an author's name, last name first, in the space marked "Find Subject."
2. Then click the Go button.
3. Click on the name in the resulting list to see the articles, or click the plus sign (+) to see more specific aspects of the subject, such as "Criticism & interpretation."

When you click a subject, a list of articles will appear. If you wish, you can use the "Refine Results" sidebar to limit your search to full electronic text. An option is also available to add a word to your search or to limit results to peer-reviewed (i.e., scholarly) journals.

The newest articles will be at the beginning of a list. To see more information about an article, click on the highlighted title. Many articles have links to full text, where you can read or print the article online. If an article has full text, you can also e-mail it to yourself. More information on printing, saving, and e-mailing articles is at the Gale periodicals instructions page.

Evaluating Internet Sites (and other information sources)

You will find some basic measures for deciding how reliable a source is at Evaluating Internet Sites. In general, published magazines and newspapers are more reliable than Internet sites. Some Web sites, however, such as government statistics sites, are considered quite reliable.

For further help, ask for assistance at the Reference Desk