Databases and Online Resources

The high school library website has many online resources accessible as web links as you can see in the image below.  The most useful databases  for this assignment are identified and linked in the accompanying boxes.

The image above shows the link on the library webpage that connects to the Gale Virtual Library.  This database includes the reference series Novels for Students in its online form (the library also owns this reference collection in its print form as well).

Within the pages of Novels for Students, young researchers will discover everything they need to complete homework assignments and lead classroom discussions. Here's what they'll find at their fingertips:

• Introductory essays that place each novel in its historical and literary context
• Easy-to-understand discussions of the novel's themes, plot and characters
• Analysis of the novel's literary construction
• Age-appropriate critical commentary on the novel's significance for our times
• A literary glossary that defines difficult terms
• A timeline that juxtaposes literary and world events
• Illustrations
• Additional sources for further study
• And more

Using the Literary Reference Center Database-

1. Type your search term(s)-simple searches would be your novel title or author name, but you may include other terms as well.

2. When you view your search results, it is most effective for this assignment to select the tab above the results that says literary criticism (see the image below.)

Literary Reference Center™ is a comprehensive database that provides users with a broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes. It has been specifically designed for public libraries, secondary schools, junior/community colleges, and undergraduate research. Literary Reference Center includes Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature, ContinuumEncyclopedia of Children’s Literature, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Beacham’s Research Guide to Biography and Criticism (six volumes), The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature, The Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story, all of MagillOnLiterature Plus™, and much more. Content includes:

• More than 35,000 plot summaries, synopses and work overviews
• Nearly 100,000 articles/essays of literary criticism
• More than 253,000 author biographies
• More than 450 literary journals
• More than 693,000 book reviews
• Nearly 78,000 classic and contemporary poems
• More than 19,600 classic and contemporary short stories
• More than 6,500 author interviews