Library Catalog

Library Catalog

To find books about a particular author search the author’s name (last name first) as a subject in Voyager, e.g.  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 

Generally speaking, books about the author’s life will simply be under the name heading; books of criticism about the author’s works are found under the sub-heading Criticism and interpretation, e.g. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 Criticism and interpretation.

Circulating books may be found by call number on the third floor; reference books are found in the second floor, south wing.

Databases

Besides books about the authors and their works, there is a bounteous supply of literary criticism published in journals on the subject.  Many of these literary journals can be accessed in the following databases:

Humanities Abstracts

Index to journal articles in the humanities.

WilsonSelectPlus

Full-text articles from general and scholarly periodicals

For extensive literary research the essential, most compendious database is the Modern Language Association Bibliography (covering literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore).

Contact Information

Frank Lepkowski

238 Kresge Library

email: lepkowsk@oakland.edu

IM: AOL: frankjlepkowski

phone: (248) 370-2497

E-Journal Collections

Another good source for journal articles come from two of our e-journal collections.  Besides having full-text articles from the journals that are included, these two collections have their own search engines that are well worth checking directly:

JSTOR

Back runs of essential journals in the humanities and other subject areas up until the current three year span.

Project Muse

Journals in the humanities and social sciences published by Johns Hopkins and other university presses.

Literary Biography

The library has many reference works with biographical information about authors.  Generally, the best way to find these works is to use a subject heading for the national literature of the author, e.g. American Literature Bio-bibliography.  Here are some of the most extensive and authoritative sources to start your research about an author:

Contemporary authors

Dictionary of Literary Biography  
various Ref. call numbers

Encyclopedia of world literature in the 20th century  
Ref. PN 771 .E5 1999

American writers 
Ref. PS 129 .A55

General Library Information

Interlibrary Loans via ILLIAD

Floor map of Kresge Library

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