Tommy Nixon
Humanities Reference Librarian
tommy_nixon@unc.edu
919.962.1151

This Library of Congress classification system holds true for any library in the world using the LC system. For example, Romance language dictionaries will always be classed in the PCs, while English language dictionaries will always be classed in the PEs. General literature will be in the PNs, Romance language literartures in the PQs, British literature in the PRs & American literature in the PSs.

Use this Map to find books in Davis Reference.

Use this Location Guide to find books in Davis.

Through the Carolina BLU Delivery Service, you can request to have books and articles available at any of the UNC-CH campus libraries, as well as books and articles requested through interlibrary loan, delivered to the campus library most convenient to you.

Indexes for finding Literary Criticism: For tips on searching ABELL & MLA (below), see the MLA - ABELL Search Guide.
Be aware of the fact that, in addition to the indexes below, there are also other electronic indexes (e.g. ABSEES Online (American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies) & Bibliographie der Deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft ), as well as other classified print indexes for literary criticism ( Bibliographie de la littérature française, Davis Reference Z2171 .B5).

MLA International Bibliography
A major index of literary criticism, linguistics, folklore & cultural studies. In addition to indexing several thousand journals, MLA also covers relevant books, book chapters, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. MLA is a very ambitious index, providing indexing of criticism for all literatures worldwide, except for classical Greek and Latin literature. For classical literature and philology, search L'Annee Philologique.
MLA now links to full-text articles in JSTOR and Project Muse, two major full-text journal collections.

ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature)
ABELL is the British counterpart to MLA and is a very important complement to MLA for English language literatures. Unlike MLA, ABELL does index reviews of scholarly books. It is possible to search both MLA & ABELL as a "combined search."

L'Annee Philologique
Index for classical literature, philology and archaeology. L'Annee Philologique indexes modern editions of ancient texts, collections of articles (including Festschriften), journal articles, articles in collections, dissertations, book reviews, and summaries.

The following two "LRC" collections index some literary criticism, but neither is nearly as comprehensive as either MLA or ABELL.

Literary Reference Center
In addition to literary criticism, this provides plot summaries, author biographies & some book reviews. Plot summaries may come in handy for students reviewing for "Comps."

Literature Resource Center
In addition to literary criticism, this provides the text of the Dictionary of Literary Biography and Contemporary Authors.

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Bibliographic essays (surveys of research) are particularly useful for alerting scholars to the most significant work in a particular area. These essays are typically narrative in form and survey the state of research for a particular subject area, literary figure, etc. They may be retrospective (surveying the state of research up until shortly before the date of publication of a monograph), or they may be issued serially — for example, an annual bibliographic essay of "The Year's Work" in a particular area. Researchers should note that bibliographic essays are by nature highly selective and evaluative. They may appear either as a separate volume (ALS: American Literary Scholarship) or as a regular feature of a journal (e.g., the Fall Issue of Victorian Poetry [serial] has a "Guide to the Year's Work"). The four annual essays listed below are significant ones.

American literary scholarship [serial]. Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press.
Essays by period and for major authors (Whitman, Dickinson, Faulkner, etc.)
Davis Reference PS3 .A47 v. 1 1963 – To Date

The Year's work in English studies [serial]. London, Published for the English Association by John Murray [etc.]
A selective, narrative bibliography evaluating studies in English and American and, more recently, other English language literatures.
Davis Reference PE58 .E6 v. 1 1919 – To Date

The Year's work in modern language studies [serial]. London [etc.] Modern Humanities Research Association [etc.]
A work in which international scholars summarize and criticize the world's studies in the major literatures, excluding English and American, but including Romance, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic. Each national literature is divided chronologically by genre, individual author, and linguistics.
Davis Reference PB1 .Y45 v. 1 1929/30 – To Date

The year's work in critical and cultural theory [serial] . Oxford : Published for the English Association by Blackwell Publishers, c1994-
An annual series of bibliographic essays, covering topics as diverse as deconstruction, modernism & postmodernism, virtual cultures, film theory, and colonial discourse.
Davis Reference PN80 .Y4 v. 1 1991 – To Date

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As with encyclopedic resources, there are indexes for almost any topic that might be supplemental to literary research, and these may be arranged by subject discipline(history, religion, art, etc), by period, or by region. If you are unsure of an appropriate index to use, try searching E-Research Tools By Subject and first try the "Recommended Databases." Below are a few selected indexes.

Art Full Text

Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA)

America, History and Life

Historical Abstracts

International Medieval Bibliography

ITER: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance

HAPI, Hispanic American Periodicals Index

Philosopher's Index

ATLA Religion Database

Index Islamicus

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Indexing of scholarly & popular literature prior to the early portion of the 20th century can be extremely "sparce." Always be aware of the cumulation of an index, either in print or electronic format, i.e., what period of the literature is actually indexed (& how thoroughly).

Periodicals Index Online
PIO is an electronic keyword index to the contents of approximately six thousand periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their first issues to the recent past (ca. 1995). Every article is indexed. The scope is international, including journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other Western languages. This provides indexing for many 18th, 19th, & 20th century journals. It also indexes book reviews & so is a good source for contemporary reviews of older books.
A major retrospective project. However, because there is no subject indexing (keyword title only), it is problematic for subject searching. Excellent for known authors or titles. It is also possible to get the contents of a specific journal issue. PIO also links to full-text articles in JSTOR journals that it indexes. Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) is a subset of PIO, provinding full text for approximately 600 journals.

Nineteenth Century Masterfile
The 19th Century Masterfile compiles a rich and growing assortment of indexes to 19th century printed material (actually from about 1774 to 1920). The indexes cover periodical literature, selected newspapers, books, U. S. government documents, U. S. patents, and British Parliamentary Debates. New indexes are added regularly. 19th Century Masterfile also includes Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (the first periodical index).

Readers' Guide Retrospective
An important index to several hundred American popular magazines, 1890 to ca. 1982. For more recent coverage of popular & scholarly periodicals, see Academic Search Premier.

English Short Title Catalogue 1473-1800 (ESTC)
The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) describes English or English-language letterpress materials published before 1801, including books, lists, advertisements, rules, songs, election propaganda, and other ephemeral items. It contains records for items of all types published in Great Britain or its colonies or in English from 1473-1800. It is the most complete index of these materials and may contain records for items that have not been digitized in the following collections: Early English Books Online (EEBO); Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans (1639-1800); Early American Imprints, Series II. Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) ; Eighteenth Century Collections Online. See the Primary Texts section for fuller descriptions of these collections.

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The date of publication of a book will often determine the approach to finding a review of it. A contemporary review of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) will require a very different tactic than finding a review of a book on the current NYT best seller list. Try the Finding Book Reviews guide below as a first step.

Book Reviews Resources

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Use the souces below to locate dissertations. A very thorough list of dissertation resources can be found at Harvard's: Finding Dissertations and Theses guide. To determine UNC holdings for older print dissertation bibliographies listed in Harvard's guide, search the UNC-CH catalog.

Dissertations & Theses
Contains the full text of most dissertations since 1997 (& some earlier) and indexing of American dissertations from 1861. Also includes indexing of some Masters theses as well as some European dissertations. Abstracts of dissertations are available electronically in this database from 1980.

Systeme Universitaire de Documentation (includes French dissertations)
To limit to dissertations, choose "Options," select "Theses," click "Appliquer."

Deutschen Nationalbibliothek (includes German dissertations)

DissOnline (Online Dissrtations)

Foreign Doctoral Dissertations Database (Center for Research Libraries, Chicago)
UNC-CH is a member of CRL, so UNC affiliates may borrow materials from CRL via Interlibrary Borrowing.

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