Book History: Secondary source databases

A library research guide for folks studying book history

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Indexes

MLA International Bibliography from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Index of scholarship on modern languages, literature, folklore, and linguistics. 4,000+ journals and 1,000+ book publishers covered. Some full-text. 1925-present.
International Medieval Bibliography from University of Leeds This link opens in a new window
Index of articles, reviews, and notes on medieval studies. A comprehensive, standard source. 1967-2003.
Using familiar, multilingual terminology defined by professional medievalists for medievalists, this database employs 120,000 index terms classified into six types (subjects, persons, texts, places, manuscripts, etc.). Covers publications in over 30 languages. Relevant to Classics, English language and literature, History and archaeology, Theology, Philosophy, Medieval European languages and literatures, Arabic and Islamic studies, Art history, etc.. Coverage begins in 1967.
Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 includes a wide range of peer-reviewed content such as comprehensive indexing for nearly 1,200 periodicals, more than 1,300,000 citations and over 240,000 book reviews.
Humanities International Complete from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Searches 2,000+ humanities journals and and books from U.S. and international sources. Includes creative works including poetry, fiction, and works of art.

JSTOR from JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Guest Access
Broad collection of full-text scholarly journals (approximately 2700 titles). Discipline coverage uneven and usually does not include the most-recent three years.
Project Muse from Muse This link opens in a new window
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Searches journals (approximately 600 titles) and books from over 120 publishers worldwide, often in full-text. Emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
Literary Reference Center from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index of biography and criticism from antiquity to the present day.
Literature Online from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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LION contains the full text of English and American poetry, drama, and prose from the Anglo-Saxon period through the twentieth century. Includes literary criticism, biography and reference sources.
Literary criticism includes ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, of scholarly books, articles, & reviews and the full text from 160 journals. Literary texts range from the seventh to the twentieth century. Journal full text covers from 1988 to the present.

Oxford Art Online from Oxford Press by Oxford
Access limited to 1 user at a time.
Provides access to The Dictionary of Art, with over 45,000 signed articles and images on every aspect of the visual arts. Content updated 3x/year. Includes several other art reference works.
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Sources: The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner (print edition: 1996, 34 vols.); The Oxford Companion to Western Art, ed. Hugh Brigstocke (2001); The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics; and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

C19: the nineteenth century index
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index is a growing all-inclusive bibliographic spine for 19th-century research. C19 is a one-stop finding tool covering multiple content types, providing records for millions of documents ranging from books and newspapers to government documents and periodicals at the article level.
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Sources include: Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals (1824-1900), Periodicals Index Online and Periodicals Archive Online (1790-1919), British Periodicals Collection I and Collection II, American Periodicals Series (1770-1919), American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries, Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 1811–1849, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (1801-1900), Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers, Palmer's Index to the Times (1790-1905)

Readers' Guide Retrospective from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Readers’ Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 provides indexing of over three million articles from more than 550 leading magazines including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. This resource offers researchers access to information about history, culture and seminal developments across nearly a century.
American Periodicals from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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Searches digitized images/text of American periodicals from 1740 to 1940. Coverage varies by title.
From the Center for Research Libraries. Full description here. Highlights:
  –  89 journals published between 1740 and 1800
  –  Many titles from the first half of the 19th century (including more than 20 women's magazines)
  –  118 periodicals published during the Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction (1865-1877) eras
  –  Trade magazines from the 19th and early 20th centuries
British Periodicals from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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Collections I and II: full-text primary source periodicals, 160+ journals from Early British Periodicals and 300+ journals from English Literary Periodicals and British Periodicals in the Creative Arts. Fully searchable text. Topics covered: literature, arts, social sciences. 17th-19th centuries.