FINDING PRIMARY TEXTS FOR LITERATURE
DEFINITION: In literary studies, a primary text is a novel, short story, poem, essay, or drama. If you know the name of the author and/or title, you can do a search in ACORN to find an edition of the book, play, or collection of works. If the title is not in ACORN, consider the option of using interlibrary loan through one of the following catalogs: Athena, Kudzu, or WorldCat. You might also check in one of the electronic full text databases listed below.
ELECTRONIC FULL TEXTS [NOTE: These databases can be accessed through the Heard Library "All Databases" page; these databases are restricted to Vanderbilt users only.]
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LION [Literature Online]
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You can search the entire set of collections or each collection individually; you can search by author, title, or keyword. |
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Database that reproduces works listed in Pollard and Redgrave's Short Title Catalog: Books Printed in English, 1475-1640; Wing's Short Title Catalog: Books Printed in English, 1641-1700; and Thomason Tracts (1640-1661). Includes fiction and non-fiction prose, prayer books, pamplets, almanacs, and other types of primary material. |
You can search in the following fields: author, title, printer, publication date, type of illustration, and Library of Congress subject headings. Page images are downloadable in PDF format. |
| Poem Finder | Full text or citations/excerpts of poems written by poets from all time periods, and from around the world (in English or English translation); thousands of print anthologies have been indexed, as well as single-author works and periodical issues--also includes "Year's Best Poetry Anthology" of new poems. You can search by keyword, author, subject, title, first or last line. Some biographical information and pictures are included. |
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Columbia Granger's World of Poetry available on Central Library workstations only [latest print edition is in the 4th floor Reference Stacks at PN1022.H39 1997; earlier editions are in the same area.] |
Index to poems in over 500 anthologies. Electronic version has complete text of many poems and quotations from others; print version is a citation index only. |
| Women Writer's Online | Full text of selected works by women writers from 1400-1850. |
INDEXES FOR CITATIONS FOR PRIMARY TEXTS
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Short Story Index Electronic access available for Vanderbilt users only from the "All Databases" Heard Library page. |
Indexes short stories written in or translated into English that have appeared in monographic collections and selected periodicals (those periodicals indexed in Readers Guide to Periodicals and Humanities Index). Covers years 1984-1997. |
print version: Z5917.S5 C6 Reference--4th floor (covers years 1890-1997) |
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ETSC (Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalog) Available only on the CD-ROM workstation in the Reference Room in Central Library. |
Index to material printed in Britain and her colonies, in any language, between 1701 and 1800; it also covers English language material printed anywhere in the world between those dates. | print version: Z2682.B875 Reference Bibliography--4th floor |
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Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalog Available only on the CD-ROM workstation in the Reference Room in Central Library. |
Catalog of English language books printed between 1801 and 1919. The catalog was compiled from the catalogs of a number of libraries, including the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Library (Dublin), National Library of Scotland, Harvard University Library, British Library, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Library, and Library of Congress. | print version: Z2001.N55 and Z2001.N552 Reference Bibliography--4th floor |
| Columbia Granger's Index to African-American Poetry | Index to poems, by 659 African-American poets, that appeared in anthologies or works by individual authors. There are 3 sections: Title, first line, and last line index; Author index; and Subject index. | print version only: Z1229.N39 C65 1999 Reference--4th floor |
For more citations for poems, also check Columbia Granger's World of Poetry and Poem Finder listed above in the Electronic Full Texts section.
[Compiled by Martha Kallstrom; for questions and comments, contact Dale Manning at manning@library.vanderbilt.edu]
date: April 22, 2002