This and other research guides are on the ACC Library web page under
Research Guides & Tutorials: http://library.sunyacc.edu
Adirondack Community College, 640 Bay Road, Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 743-2260
At any point in your research, please consult a reference librarian. Librarians are available whenever the library is open at (518) 743-2200 ext. 2462. Library hours are listed on the ACC Library's home page: http://library.sunyacc.edu.
To find books or multimedia items, search the ACC book catalog (ACC Library web page > Finding Books > Catalog):
- Reference books, on the library’s main floor, don’t leave the library, so are always available.
- Circulating books, on the upper level of the library, may be checked out for four weeks.
- Videos, DVDs and music CDs may be borrowed by faculty. Students may use equipment near the video/DVD shelves.
Search tip: Start with a keyword search. When you find an interesting book, look for the subject headings in the book's online description. Click on any that refine your search best. We recommend visiting the ACC Library's Research Guides & Tutorials page, which offers a narrated tutorial on searching the online catalog and two tutorials called "Research Steps," offering important search strategies. Here are some subject headings to consider using:
Reference Books:
Reference books, on the main floor, can help you select a research topic. They also offer quick background information and overviews on subjects.
The following Reference Books specifically address the subject of women and literature:
Partnow, Elaine T. The Female Dramatist: Profiles of Women Playwrights from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Times
Ref. PN471 .P37 1998
Contemporary Women Poets, introductory forwards by Elizabeth M. Mills, Diane Wakoski ; editor, Pamela L. Shelton. Reference Ref. PS151 .C67 1998
Asian-American Women Writers, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom.
Ref. PS 153.A84
Peterson, Jane T. Women Playwrights of Diversity: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Jane T. Peterson and Suzanne Bennett.
Ref. PS 338.W6
American Women Fiction Writers, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom.
Ref. PS 374.W6
Peterson, Jane T. Women Playwrights of Diversity: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Jane T. Peterson and Suzanne Bennett. Ref. PS 338.W6
The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States, editors in chief, Cathy N. Davidson, Linda Wagner-Martin; editors, Elizabeth Ammons ... [et al.].
Ref. PS 147 .O94
Modern Women Writers, Matthew J. Bruccoli and Judith S. Baughman, series editors; foreword by Mary Ann Wimsatt.
Ref. Z 1231.F4
Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Sandra Pollack and Denise D. Knight.
Ref. PS 153.L46
American Women Writers: Bibliographical Essays, edited by Maurice Duke, Jackson R. Bryer, and M. Thomas Inge.
Ref. Z 1229.W8 A44 1983
Notable American Women: The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Barbara Sicherman, Carol Hurd Green, with Ilene Kantrov, Harriette Walker.
Ref. CT 3260 .N573 1983
The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography, original compiler and editor, Jennifer S. Uglow assistant editor on first edition (for science, mathematics, and medicine), Frances Hinton. 4th ed., revising editor on third and fourth editions, Maggy Hendry.
Ref. CT 3202 .P26 2005
Alexander, Christine. The Oxford Companion to the Brontës, Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith.
Ref. PR 4167.A3 O94 2003
The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia, edited by ElizabethAnn Beaulieu.
Ref. PS 3563.O8749 Z913 2003
A Zora Neale Hurston companion by Robert W. Croft
Ref. PS 3515.U789 Z464
A to Z of American women writers by Carol Kort
Ref. PS 147 .K67
Caribbean women writers, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom.
Ref. PR 9205.05 .C37
American women writers: a critical reference guide from colonial times to the present
Ref. PS 147 .A4 VOL.1
Dean, Katharine A. The undergraduate’s companion to women writers and their web sites
Ref. PN 453 .U54 2002
Mainiero, Lina. American women writers: a critical reference guide from colonial times to the present
Ref. PS 147 .A4 VOL.1
More Women in Literature: Criticism of the Seventies, by Carol Fairbanks.
Ref. Z 6514.C5
Circulating Books
To find a circulating book on the subject of women and literature in the ACC Library Catalog, just enter the terms women and literature in the search box, or feminis* and literature.
If you have a specific writer in mind, just enter the author's name in the search box. If you cannot find your specific author, regeneralize your search to "women and literature"; then search in the indexes of the books for your author's name. Tables of contents for recently published books are now right in the record in the catalog; however, indexes are not visible to the computer, so you must go to the actual books in order to search the indexes.
If you would like to see a large catalog that lists the books in other libraries primarily in the United States, search WorldCat. To find WorldCat from the Library's Web page, select Finding Books; then select WorldCat. You may obtain almost any book that we do not have in our library by using interlibrary loan; just ask for Interlibrary Loan forms at the Reference Desk. Please ask the librarian about filling out the form.
Gale Virtual Reference Library:
You can search thousands of full-text chapters from more than 250 reference books published by Gale Cengage Learning. The ACC Library owns many of these books in printed format also. The Document Title search will search for your term in the chapter titles, giving you full-text chapters from the reference books. The content is the exactly the same as the original printed books. Thisis a subscription database, available from off-campus to ACC students, faculty and staff. Find this database with these links: ACC Library Web page > Finding Books > Reference > Gale Virtual Reference Library.
This database is useful for finding biographies of women authors or background on events authors write about.
Finding Articles:
Journal articles offer current and specific information and research. Search for journal articles by subject through any of the ACC Library's dozens of article databases. Many but not all offer full-text links to articles. (If needed, ask a reference librarian about finding an article though another database, print sources or interlibrary loan if it's not full-text.).
Article databases are subscription-only products. ACC students and faculty may search these from home by following screen directions. To get your ACC student username and password, see Lookup Account and Password on the Student Portal page. For a full list of journals ACC Library receives, see the online Periodicals at ACC list or check the card file at the Circulation Desk.
From the ACC Library Web page, go to Finding Articles. Then, choose either:
- General Databases to find articles on a current, popular or multidisciplinary topic and need a mix of newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals; or
- Subject Databases to find specialized articles on one subject only, such as business, science, literature, nursing, etc.
Among the General Databases are:
● EBSCO's Academic Search Premier: Over 8000 journals; about half are full-text.
● JSTOR: full-text; 117 journals covering the arts, sciences and social sciences.
● New York Times: Current (1980-present) and historical editions (1851-2003).
● WilsonSelectPlus: Completely full-text; 1+ million articles from 1400 journals.
● New York State Newspapers: includes New York Times full-text.
● Opposing Viewpoints, CQ Researcher, more.
These databases are of particular use for researching literature and women:
| Database: | Details: |
| Arts and Humanities Citation Index | Select Subject Databases; then select First Search Arts and Humanities Databases > AHSearch. |
| ECO | Select Subject Databases; under Humanities, select FirstSearch; you will see that ECO (Electronic Collections Online) has been preselected. An OCLC collection of scholarly journals. Contact a librarian to interlibrary loan items that are not full-text. |
| JStor | Select General Databases; scroll down to JStor. A scholarly journal archive |
| Literature Resource Center | Select Subject Databases; under Humanities, select the Literature Resource Center. The foundation of the LRC is built on Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism and Dictionary of Literary Biography. Also included are: full-text, excerpted material from Gale's Literature Criticism and For Students series as well as critical essays on major authors via links to more than 260 prominent literary journals. |
| Radical Scatters | Emily Dickinson's Fragments and Related Texts. 1870-1886. |
Gale Literary Index
http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitIndex
This free Index is a fine tool that will allow you to perform a search on the following Gale titles owned by the ACC Library.
|
The Beat Generation : A Gale Critical Companion |
Ref. PS 228.B6 B43 2003 Vol.3 |
|
Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults : A Selection of Sketches from Something about the Author |
Ref PN 451 .M37 1998 |
|
Shakespearean Criticism: Excerpts from the Criticism of William Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry, from the First Published Appraisals to Current Evaluations |
Ref PR 2965 .S44 VOl.30 |
|
Dictionary of Literary Biography: Documentary Series |
Ref PS 129 .D52 |
|
Contemporary Authors |
Ref Z 1224 .C58 |
|
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism |
Ref PN 761 .N56 Index |
|
Contemporary Authors : Cumulative Index |
Ref Z 1224 .C6 |
|
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism |
Ref PN 771 .G27 VOL.123 |
|
Dictionary of Literary Biography |
Ref PS 21 .D52 VOL.193 |
|
Contemporary Literary Criticism |
Ref PN 771 .C59 Index |
|
Contemporary Authors : a Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television and Other Fields |
Ref Z 1224 .C6 |
Search terms:
In order to communicate with the databases, you must have some words. Here are some suggested search terms:
| Women and literature | Feminist | Women's rights | Women's issues | Gender |
| Women and authors | Feminism | Women's history | Women and writing | Sex role |
You will discover that most databases have a truncation sign, usually an * that will allow you to search for forms of words: entering author* will return author, authors, authoring, and any other word that has author as its root.
Here are some recommended Web sites. Of the billions of Web sites in the world, these are more appropriate for college-level research.
Columbia University Libraries - Subject Guides - Women's Studies Literature Resources
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eguides/womenstudies/litweb.html
Literary Resources - Feminism and Women's Literature
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/women.html
Women's Studies Resources Compiled & edited by Karla Tonella, University of Iowa
http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/wstudies/literature.html
Women's Studies Section Association of College & Research Libraries / American Library Association
http://libraries.mit.edu/humanities/WomensStudies/Culture2.html
For more information:
Consult a reference librarian at any point in your research. You may also want to see other online ACC Library research guides.
Among those are the Literature and English Classes research guides.
Updated July 2008, BDA