UA Libraries Resources
- UA Libraries CatalogA traditional catalog of library holdings: print and electronic books, films, sound recordings, musical scores, government documents, and more (no articles).
Use the Advanced Search page for complex searching, combining keywords or subject headings. - Interlibrary Loan (ILL)If the book or article you need is not available through the University Libraries, you can use Interlibrary Loan (or ILL) to request a copy from another library.
- Databases A-Z ListFind the best library databases for your research. You can limit your search using the drop down menu "All Database Types" at the top of the screen.
- ScoutUA Libraries' discovery tool-- use this to simultaneously search the libraries catalog, digital special collections, ebooks and ejournals, in addition to most of the databases.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Images of the full text of many scholarly titles in a range of subject areas, including literature, biological sciences, economics, finance, and statistics. Search the archive or pull up a specific article. Artstor is now available on the JSTOR platform.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE provides full-text access scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. The database is a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and other university presses and not-for-profit publishers. Also included are the UPCC collections in Asian and Pacific Studies, and Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction.
What is WorldCat Good For?
- WorldCatWorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information. You can search for popular books, music CDs and videos—all of the physical items you're used to getting from libraries. WorldCat can be used to verify citations, locate an item in another library, or to provide accurate citation information for inter-library loan requests. (Does not include citations to individual articles, stories in periodicals, or book chapters).
Searching Subjects Comprehensively
Sometimes you are doing research for a project and you need to see what has been published on the topic. Let's say you are thinking about doing research on slave narratives from the Louisiana Purchase territory and you want to see if any scholarship has been published on the topic. You can use WorldCat to identify LC subject headings relevant to your project, as well as locate and identify rare books that might exist on the subject.
Identifying Alternate Editions
There are occasions when you will find the need to identify trends in publishing or compare editions of a work. WorldCat is an excellent tool for these kinds of tasks because it contains records from over 72,000 libraries. This can be an especially daunting task, as the definition of "work" and "edition" is not always.
Confirming Bibliographic Data
Sometimes the bibliographic information for an item is incredibly important. Which edition was published first? Did this author publish this specific item before this other item was written or published? We all know how important citations are. You can use WorldCat to help sort everything out.
- Getting the Most Out of WorldCatSometimes you are doing research for a project and you need to see what has been published on the topic. Let’s say you are thinking about doing research on gender roles in Shakespeare’s comedies and you want to see if any scholarship has been published on the topic. You can use WorldCat to identify LC subject headings relevant to your project, as well as locate and identify rare books that might exist on the subject.
- The Concept of a Work in WorldCat: An Application of FRBRThis paper explores the concept of a work in WorldCat, the OCLC Online Union Catalog, using the hierarchy of bibliographic entities defined in the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) report.
MLA Bibliography Resources
- MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Consists of bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore, and includes coverage from 1963 to the present. Provides access to scholarly research in journals and series, and covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies, and other formats.
- MLA International Bibliography Vimeo ChannelMLA has produced around 52 videos to help support various search strategies and tasks within the bibliography's database. Check them out and learn some useful skills for effective research!
- Using the MLA International BibliographyThe MLA has developed an online course to teach students how to use the MLA International Bibliography for college-level research. Each of the five units in the course presents a lesson, followed by progression questions to reinforce the lesson through active engagement with the bibliography, and a quiz. Students will receive a badge upon passing each quiz and a course-completion badge after completing all the lessons and passing all five quizzes.
- Guidelines for Editors of Scholarly EditionsIt can be difficult to determine whether an edition is "critical." The MLA Guidelines can help you evaluate the items that you find to make this determination.