Start by searching
MLA International Bibliography. Coverage goes from 1926-present. You can
click here to see what exactly is covered by
MLA.
MLA is the most extensive database we have in terms of literature studies.
This video has information on how to use some of the advanced search options in
MLAHowever, no one database indexes all scholarly publications.
On the
English guide I would also suggest searching
LRC (most useful for biographical information on an author rather then scholarly research) as well as
ASC,
Project Muse &
JSTOR (the largest interdisciplinary databases we have).
Click here to see the complete list of Literature related databases. (So if your text was published in the 18th century, search the 18th century database and so on.)
Think about whether scholars in
other disciplines would have written on your text and search
those databases as well (for example, if you are writing on
Oedipus Rex, search the Classics databases as well)
You can also search
WorldCat (
either though FirstSearch or Google Books) to see if anyone has published a bibliography of your text. Try searching for
bibliography "title of work" "author's name" Click
here to see a sample search of bibliographies of Hamlet.
I would also suggest searching for annotated bibliographies in a
dissertation databases such as
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.If you are searching for scholarship from journals that have not been digitized, this is a slightly more complicated proposition. You will need to search in
FirstSearch WorldCat to see if there are any
print indexes available for the time frame you are looking for (ex.
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth-Century Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers,
from the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations OR
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism OR
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, etc). If we hold the print index, you can search it for mentions of your text. If we do not, you will need to request that print index though
ILL. Keep in mind, if an early review of your text remains significant in the field of literature, it is likely that it will be mentioned in more recent bibliographies.
Print bibliographies can also be useful.This guide has resources on searching out the textual histories of books, it may have some useful resources. Please
contact me if you have any questions.
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