1. First Year English Workshop
Legacy of the Mediterranean
Library Research, Part II
Professor Shelly Fredman
Librarian Jenna Freedman
October 15, 2013

2. Databases: an Introduction
What
• Articles
• Book chapters
• Dissertations
• Proceedings
What what
• Citations
• Abstracts
• Html full text
• Pdf of article
Why
• Secondary sources
• Literature review
• Current awareness
• Shorter, more focused
works (than books)
• Multiple simultaneous users

3. Literary, critical, or
close reading
• Include name of text or
author in search
• Add terms to explore an
aspect of the text that
interests you
• E.g., characters, themes,
places, etc.
3
Image from ManageWP blog post by Tom Ewer

4. MLA
• Literary criticism
• eLink
• Clues:
• Articles & chapters vs. proceedings &
dissertations
• Your age or younger
• Citations & cited by

5. Historical
• Include words or phrases
important to historical
context
– date-specific (16th or
sixteenth century)
– Era-specific (Elizabethan)
– Geographical (England)
• Do not include text title or
author
5
Image from Wikimedia Commons:
Exponate im hauseigenen Museum

6. Historical Abstracts
• Historical period
• Truncation *
• Limits: date, subject, book reviews

7. Theoretical
• Include words or phrases
related to your theorist or
lens
– Select discipline specific
databases (e.g., gender
studies, philosophy,
psychology, etc.)
– Use theorist's name or
philosophy in search term in
interdisciplinary database
– Consider reference sources
• You may or may not include
text title or author
7
Public domain image Rorschach1WithMarksCrop
from Wikimedia Commons

8. Find Articles
• Theory
• Facets
• Limits

9. How to choose?
• Author and publisher's perspectives/point of
view.
• Relevance to your research
• Currency of scholarship
• Sources cited by this source (look in the
bibliography)
• Sources citing this source (Google Scholar is
an easy, though imprecise way to check)

10. Remember

11. Your Personal Librarian

12. Feedback form (again!)