| The Literature
Resource Center (LRC) is much more than the Library's
access to the Modern Language Association International Bibliography
(MLA) online: it is also a complete literature reference database
designed for both the undergraduate and graduate student. Rich in biographical,
bibliographical, and critical content, the LRC is a wonderful Internet
resource for information on literary figures from all time periods.
Along with MLA's more than 1.4 million
bibliographic citations--many with accompanying full-text--from 1963 to
the present, the LRC includes 40 years of the following Gale proprietary
literary reference information:
-
Contemporary Authors through the current
volume, featuring biographies on more than 111,000 authors
-
Contemporary Authors New Revision Series
through the current volume, featuring updated biographies on prominent
contemporary authors
-
Contemporary Literary Criticism Select,
offering selected criticism through volume 135 of the print series
-
Dictionary of Literary Biography, all
biographies through volume 241 of the print series
-
More than 28,500 full-text articles and excerpts
from critical essays originally appearing in: Children's Literature
Review, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Literature
Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism,
Poetry
Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, Short Story Criticism,
and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism
Other features in the LRC include:
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Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature,
featuring more than 10,000 descriptive entries on literary figures,
works, and terms
-
Current, full-text critical essays on major
authors via links to more than 140 prominent literary journals
-
Over 4300 explications and overviews of prominent
literary works
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Links to 5000 web sites focusing on major authors
and their works
-
6000 timeline events to help place literature
in its historical and social context
-
2300 author portraits
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A guide to writing a MLA-style research paper
-
Access to the Literature Index, an online
database that indexes the content of all of the Gale Group's literature
products
-
A guide to conducting research
The Literature
Resource Center has designated some 2,400 of the more
than 120,000 available authors in the database as the most-studied literary
figures in the undergraduate curriculum. This group of 2,400 most studied
authors has been given in-depth biographical and critical coverage. In
addition, each of these authors has been classified by nationality, ethnicity,
genres in which they have written, literary movements and time periods
to which they belong, and literary themes generally associated with their
work. This comprehensive list of major authors was compiled by our staff
of editors experienced with literature criticism and reviewed by an advisory
panel comprised of librarians, scholars, and academic professionals.
Do you have a favorite contemporary author?
Someone you would love to hear read? In conjunction with Publisher's
Weekly, the LRC also has a fun feature which allows you
to search for author appearances in your area.
A final note: Gale is working very closely
with CUNY librarians in order to refine and improve their online product.
For instance, one aspect of the LRC that users may find confusing
is that if you are searching MLA and key in a request in the "search
for author" box at the top of the search screen, LRC drops you out
of MLA and brings you to a tabular LRC options screen. You
will need to click on the MLA tab:
     
to retrieve the MLA results. At this
point you can also limit your search to full-text citations only. |
