LibGuides: Literature-Based Research: Internet Searching

Subject Directories and More!

Using Internet directories helps avoid the many “false hits” a standard search engine provides. You will get far fewer hits than you might with Google, but, in general, they will be of a higher quality and will take less time to find the right site for your research!

Also note we have included some free internet resources for books and other literary information. Enjoy!

ipl2: Information you can trust
ipl2 is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment. To date, thousands of students and volunteer library and information science professionals have been involved in answering reference questions for our Ask an ipl2 Librarian service and in designing, building, creating and maintaining the ipl2's collections. It is through the efforts of these students and volunteers that the ipl2 continues to thrive to this day.
ipl2: Literary Criticism
Internet Public Library Literary Criticism Collection has lists of links to criticism and biographical websites that can be browsed by author, title, literary period or nationality. IPL’s Online Literary Criticism Guide links to further sources.
Perspectives in American Literature
Contains bibliographies and criticisms organized by time periods.
Bartleby.com
Bartleby.com publishes the classics of literature, nonfiction and reference free of charge for anyone with Internet access. The reference works include: The American Heritage Dictionary, Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, American Heritage Book of English Usage, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Strunk’s The Elements of Style, H. L. Mencken’s The American Language, Emily Post’s Etiquette, and Thomas Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable, and Transcripts from the Inaugural Addresses of each American president.
The Online Books Page
Online Books Page via the Internet is a database of links to public domain eBooks.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
Alex is a collection of public domain documents from American and English literature and Western philosophy. The Alex database is fully searchable and indexed for browsing by Author, Title, or Date.

Google Scholar

Provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles. Keep in mind, not everything you find will be freely available in full text and you will still need to evaluate these sources for quality as you would any other internet resource!

Google Scholar Home Page

Google Books

Search and preview millions of books from libraries and publishers worldwide using Google Book Search. While you can only preview books, you may find something useful that exists on our shelves. Interlibrary loan is temporarily not available.