Literature Article Databases
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MLA International Bibliography
Indexes journal articles, series, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, proceedings and other materials supporting critical scholarship on literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. Sponsored by the Modern Language Association.
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Literature Resource Center (LRC)
Indexes biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers by providing access to content of numerous print counterparts including Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and Dictionary of Literary Biography.
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Literature Criticism Online
Contains thousands of essays from the Gale literary criticism books including: Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism (CMLC), Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC), Drama Criticism (DC), Literature Criticism from 1400-1800 (LC), Poetry Criticism (PC), Shakespearean Criticism (SC), Short Story Criticism (SSC), and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (TCLC).
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Literature Online
Includes more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 131 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources. Includes reference works on literary criticism and biographical information. Go directly to Literature Online - poetry texts, Literature Online - drama texts, Literature Online - prose texts, Literature Online - search authors or Literature Online - Criticism and Reference
Where's the PDF?
Many article databases contain information about articles (citations or abstracts), not the entire text of the article. Once you've used an article database to find articles on your topic, you may need to use this button:
in order to locate and read the full text of the article. The UC-eLinks button appears in nearly all the databases available from the UCB Library website.
UC-eLinks will link you to the online full text of an article if UCB has paid for online access; otherwise, UC-eLinks will help you locate a print copy on the shelf in the library. If UCB doesn't own the article in print or online format, UC-eLinks can also help you order a copy from another library.
For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 4 min.)
You can also set up UC-eLinks to work with Google Scholar. For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 2 min.)
General Article Databases
Now that you know the types of articles you need, you can choose a database, also known as a periodical index, to find them. Databases are collections of thousands of articles organized by subject. The Libraries have hundreds of databases covering every academic discipline. Some are multi-disciplinary, covering a broad range of subjects and including popular and scholarly sources, and others are subject-specific, and include scholarly and specialized articles. A complete list is available at Find Articles.
The following multi-disciplinary databases are good places to start your research:
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Academic Search Complete
A multidisciplinary index to articles in more than 10,900 journals and other publications in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese; full-text is available for over 5300 journals.
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Google Scholar
Lists journal articles, books, preprints, and technical reports in many subject areas (though more specialized article databases may cover any given field more completely). Some listings include links to related articles and to other sources that cite the item. Includes content from free resources (such as ArXiv.org and university websites) as well as subscription resources (such as electronic journals from selected publishers). Use the UC-eLinks option, when available, to find the UCB access to a publication.
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JSTOR
Includes over 1000 scholarly journals with access to more than 2 million articles. JSTOR is an archive which means that current issues (generally the most recent 3-5 years) of the journals are not yet available.
Databases for Film Studies
The MLA Bibliography can also be a good source for film criticism, particularly for films that were adapted from novels.
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Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text
Indexes 150 scholarly and popular periodicals from 30 countries cover-to-cover and 300 other periodicals selectively for reviews and articles on the topic film and television. Search by keyword, production title and more or browse by some 2000 subject headings.
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FIAF: International Index to Film Periodicals
Indexes scholarly and popular journals, books, book reviews, and proceedings worldwide on a wide range of topics within the fields of film and television studies. Includes complete data from all volumes of the International Index to Film Periodicals (1972 to the present), the TV-related companion (1979 to the present), the annual volumes of the International Index to Film.
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Film Index International
Indexes almost 100,000 international feature films and shorts, Hollywood entertainment shorts, documentaries, and television movies from all over the world. Includes references to critical and industry articles on films, articles on personalities from approximately 260 international film/TV journals, information about film awards and prizes, and searchable plot summaries with cast and crew lists. This database is produced in collaboration with the British Film Institute.