Oxford LibGuides: English Language and Literature: Bibliographic Databases

Introduction

Bibliographic databases offer focussed searching for content on a particular topic, allowing the discovery of relevant journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and more. Some bibliographic databases will provide full-text access to resources, while others may provide only bibliographic details, or a combination of both. Oxford's subscription databases can be accessed through SOLO or Databases A-Z.

You can browse the Databases A-Z platform by subject using the dropdown menu - eg browse for English - Bibliographic Databases. Some of the key databases are also listed below.

Literature Online

Literature Online
Literature Online not only provides access to the full text of more than 350,000 British and American original works, it also provides access to articles from over 430 scholarly journals. Coverage is extended by the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), one of the most important bibliographic sources for English studies.

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.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index

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

MLA International Bibliography

MLA International Bibliography
The MLA International Bibliography indexes articles from over 4,000 humanities journals from 1926 to the present. Its focus is modern languages and literature, including English. You can search for articles by author, subject or title, and complex combined keyword searches are also possible.

The MLA also provides links to the library catalogue and full text articles, where available.

Oxford Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies
Oxford Bibliographies are comprehensive subject bibliographies, which provide an up-to-date overview of the most recent and authoritative scholarship. Oxford Bibliographies provides a seamless pathway to the most accurate and reliable resources. Every article in the database is an authoritative guide to the current scholarship, written and reviewed by academic experts, with original commentary and annotations.

The site includes bibliographies on authors and topics from American Literature, British & Irish Literature, Literary and Cultural Theory, Medieval Studies, Renaissance & Reformation, and Victorian Literature. You can browse by subject or search the site. Once in a bibliography on a topic or author, you can use the button to search SOLO for the recommended item.