English 55/Black Studies 29:
Childhood in African and Caribbean Literature
Fall 2005
Library Catalogs and Indexes | Literary-Critical Sources | Background | Dictionaries | Citing Sources
Library Catalogs and Indexes:
Books and Articles
The Five College Library Catalogs: the four
college catalog (for Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith)
and the UMass
catalog: Search by author,
subject,
title,
or keyword.
To find books about authors, look under their names as subjects.
MLA International Bibliography: References to scholarly
articles about literature, folklore, linguistics, and more published since
1963. No book reviews listed! Use ACLinks to online articles
or catalog searches for the journals in print.
Expanded
Academic ASAP and Academic
Search Premier: Databases covering many different disciplines,
most articles with complete texts. Some references back to 1975. Book
reviews as well as critical articles.
Lexis-Nexis
Academic Universe: Access to complete articles from many newspapers
worldwide. A place to start looking for very recent (but not very scholarly)
reviews.
Journal
Locator/Citation Linker, See if a journal is available
at AC; connect to electronic copies or look in library catalog for print
journals
Literary-Critical Sources
Biography Resource Center online or Contemporary Authors
in print (Ref CT 220 C6): Biographies of authors, lists of their books,
notes on reviews, interviews, etc. Database is more up-to-date.
Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers: First, Second,
and Third Series (Ref PR 9205 A52 T88): Illustrated biographies of
selected major authors from Caribbean region and Africa. Lists both original
and critical publications.
Fifty Caribbean Writers: a Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook
(Ref PR 9205 A52 F54 1986): Essays by various scholars on fifty major
authors from Caribbean. Includes works by and about authors. Now dated.
African Writers (Ref PL 8010 A453 1997): Two volumes of critical
surveys of major writers from Africa, with bibliographies.
Companion to African Literature (PR 9340 C65 2000): Quick one-volume
dictionary of authors, literary works, topics, etc.
Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English 2nd edition
(Ref PR 9080 A52 E53 1994): A 3-volume set with articles about authors,
genres, topics, etc.
Background
Britannica Online:
For basic information, a good encyclopedia is often best.
The
World Factbook: Current, brief information (mostly statistics)
about individual countries, compiled by the CIA. Very good for regional
and individual country maps.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures
(Ref F 1406 E515 2000): Short articles, sometimes with suggestions for
further reading, on places, people, music, cinema, and more.
African Caribbeans: a Reference Guide (Ref F 1629 B55 A37 2003):
Chapter covering history and culture of selected Caribbean islands and
countries. A place to begin, not end, a search for background.
Caribbean History in Maps (Ref xG 1535 A8 1979): Good representation
of original inhabitants, European conquest and conflict, patterns of slavery,
economics, etc., up through the 1970s.
Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara (Ref DT 351 E53 1997):
Multi-volume encyclopedia devoted to Africa. More specialized and scholarly
than a general encyclopedia.
Key Events in African History (Ref DT 20 F35 2002): Topical chapters
survey key events, movements, issues. Brief bibliographies.
Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History (Ref DT 29 E53
2003): Use this to look up subjects, places, people, etc.
Cultural Atlas of Africa (Ref xG 2446 E1 C8 1998): Graphic representations
and brief essays on countries and topics.
Dictionaries
When you are reading any literature, an essential tool is a good, unabridged
dictionary. Now the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (Ref PE
1625 O87 1989) is available as the OED
Online. This dictionary gives definitions and also illustrates
historical changes in words' meanings; its size and scholarly inclusiveness
mean that you are likely to find even words which have recently migrated
into English.Sometimes even the OED needs to be supplemented. Try
Encarta World English Dictionary (Ref PE 1628 S5824 1999) -- or
more specialized works like the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage
(Ref PE 3304 D33 1996), or, perhaps, A Dictionary of South African
English (Ref PE 3451 D53 1996) or A Dictionary of Africanisms (Ref
PE 3401 D3 1982).
Citing Sources
Be sure to credit the sources you use for a research project
-- whether printed books and journals or online texts, websites, etc.
The Citing References: MLA Style from the Library at University
of Wisconsin - Whitewater tells you how to cite all kinds of sources for
courses in literature. Or use The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers at the Reference Desk
Do you have questions about research in this course? Contact Margaret Adams Groesbeck (email:magroesbeck; voice: x2098)