Useful Databases Available through the Sterling C. Evans Library

MLA International Bibliography [MLAB]

Produced by the Modern Language Association of America, the MLA International Bibliography indexes critical scholarship on literature, language, linguistics and folklore. Coverage includes journal articles, series, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, proceedings and other materials. The database includes all records indexed from 1963 to the present, approximately 1,400,000 records.

A quick search for Chaucer in MLA nets almost 5800 entries.

Paper copies of the MLA International Bibliography from 1921-1999 are available in the Evans Reference area at PB1 .M46.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature

The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature lists monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations published anywhere in the world. The bibliography consists of 75 volumes beginning in 1920 and issued annually in printed volumes. Subject areas covered by ABELL include:

·                     English Language - including syntax, phonology, lexicology, semantics, stylistics and dialectology

·                     English Literature - including poetry, prose, fiction, films, biography, travel writing, literary theory and studies of individual authors

·                     Bibliography - including manuscript studies, textual studies and the history of publishing

·                     Traditional culture of the English-speaking world including custom, belief, narrative, song, dance and material culture

A quick search for Chaucer in ABELL nets over 10,000 entries.

Paper copies of ABELL from 1920-2000 are available in the Evans Reference area at PB1 .A55.

International Medieval Bibliography

The leading bibliography of the European Middle Ages (450–1500) with over 270,000 records. It was established in the mid-1960s with the support of the Medieval Academy of America to provide a current bibliography of articles from periodicals and miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, Festschriften or collections of essays). It has been published since 1968 and in the intervening period has catalogued and classified over 270,000 medieval records. An electronic version has been available since 1995.

The discipline areas to which the IMB is relevant include Classics, English Language and Literature, History and Archaeology of Medieval Europe, Theology and Philosophy, Modern (European) Languages and Literatures, History of Education, Art History, Music, Theatre and Performance Arts, Rhetoric and Communication Studies.

The database covers 4000 journals and 5000 miscellany volumes that are the sources for the records, includes over 120,000 index terms from a controlled thesaurus, has a ‘modern author’ browse list of over 70.000 scholars and allows searching by subject, geographical area and century.

A quick search for Chaucer in IMB nets over 3100 entries.

Paper copies of the International Medieval Bibliography from 1967-1999 are available in the Evans Reference area at Z 6203 I63.

ITER

Iter, meaning 'a journey' or 'a path' in Latin, is a non-profit research project with partners in Toronto, Canada (the headquarters), New York City, and Tempe, Arizona. The goal of Iter is to increase access to all published materials pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700), through the creation of online bibliographic databases.

The ITER Journals database is an electronic bibliography of interdisciplinary journal literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). Citations for articles; bibliographies; catalogues; abstracts; and discographies are included.

Journal titles indexed: To date, the full runs of 518 scholarly journal titles, published since 1853, have been indexed. A complete list of titles is available for review.

Subject access: Subject access to selected materials pertaining to the Renaissance (1300-1700), published since 1990, is available via Library of Congress Subject Headings.

A quick search for Chaucer in ITER nets over 1850 entries.

Wilson

The Wilson databases cover a variety of subjects and sources, usually in English. Two of the Wilson databases are particularly appropriate for literature research:

Essay and General Literature Index

Essay and General Literature Index, produced by The H. W. Wilson Company, is a bibliographic database that cites essays and articles contained in collections of essays and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. More than 300 volumes are indexed annually. Additionally, more than 20 annuals and serial publications are indexed. Essay and General Literature Index also provides full bibliographic information on collective titles indexed. Essay and General Literature Index focuses on the humanities and social sciences, with subject coverage ranging from economics, political science, and history to criticism of literary works, drama, and film.

A quick search for Chaucer in Essay and General Literature Index nets over 250 entries.

Paper copies of the Essay and General Literature Index from 1900-1998 are available in the Evans Stacks at AI3 .E752.

Humanities Full Text

Subjects Covered
Archaeology, Area Studies, Art, Classical Studies, Communications, Dance, Film, Folklore, Gender Studies, History, Journalism, Linguistics, Literary & Social Criticism Literature, Music, Performing Arts, Philosophy, Religion and Theology

Humanities Full Text, produced by The H.W. Wilson Company, is a bibliographic database that cites articles from English-language periodicals, plus the full text of selected periodicals. Periodical coverage includes some of the best-known scholarly journals and numerous lesser-known but important specialized magazines. Full-text coverage begins in January 1995.

A quick search for Chaucer in Humanities Full Text nets over 1400 entries.

Paper copies of the Humanities Index (and its predecessors) from 1907-1999 are available in the Evans Stacks at AI3 .H84.

Web of Science--Arts & Humanities Citation Index

Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals.

A&HCI:

Provides access to current information and retrospective data from 1975 forward.
Averages 2,250 new records per week.

Includes approximately 15,250 new cited references per week.

Contains a current total of over 2.5 million records.

Contains unique implicit citations that refer you to actual representations of a work of art or music score.

Contains title enhancements added to ambiguous or hard-to-categorize article titles to clarify article contents.

As of January 2000, the Arts & Humanities Citation Index contains searchable, full-length, English-language author abstracts (as available) for the new articles entered into the database.

A quick search for Chaucer in A&HCI nets over 2575 entries.

Paper copies of the A&HCI from 1975-1997 are available in the Evans Stacks at Z5931 .A78.

Useful Web Pages

A very small sampling of the material available on the Internet about Chaucer, his life and works.

Geoffrey Chaucer Home Page http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/ includes a link to “Thirty-Year Working Bibliography For Chaucer And Middle English Literature: 1970-2000” by Derek Pearsall

The Middle English Collection at the Electronic Text Center, UVa http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/mideng.browse.html

Geoffrey Chaucer http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucer.htm

Anthology of Middle English Literature http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/index.html

GeoffreyChaucer.org http://geoffreychaucer.org/ links to many Chaucer sites and resources

The Chaucer Metapage http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/

Chaucer—Life and Times

This CD-ROM database accessible in a stand-alone workstation to the right of the Evans Reference Desk has a number of useful tools for the study of Chaucer. It features:

• Riverside Chaucer: fulltext of Chaucer’s works

• Modern Translations: covers the major works

• Life and Times: extensive biographical information, with detailed essays on historical context

• Overviews of Works: provides a series of essays on the works themselves, along with information on extant manuscripts, bibliographic essays on criticism, etc.

• Timeline: covers Chaucer’s life, important political and historical events of the times, and developments in the arts.

• Other contents include: maps, glossary, further reading, critical essays, listen to Middle English being read, and other aids for Chaucer study.

The interface on this CD-ROM is highly graphic, and may look more like a computer game than a serious work of scholarship, but it does contain a wealth of useful information and detail about Chaucer, his works, their context and the critical reaction.

Library Assistance

If you need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to go the Evans Reference Desk for Help. They are located on the 1^st floor of the Main Library building. You may also contact them via phone at 845-5741 or via email at lib-help@tamu.edu.

If you want specialized help, you may schedule an appointment with me, as liaison librarian to the Department of English, and I will be happy to help you with your research topic, recommend sources and introduce you to searching some of the electronic materials.

Candace R. Benefiel
Associate Professor
979-862-1044
cbenefie@lib-gw.tamu.edu