LibGuides: English: Reference Works

Literary Reference Resources

On this page you will find just a few of the many general resources available from the Brown library. Please be aware that many more may be found by searching BruKnow or consulting with your librarian.

BruKnow This link opens in a new window
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BruKnow is the Library's platform for searching books, ebooks, databases, articles, multimedia, digital collections, and special collections, current

General Reference Resources

CREDO Reference This link opens in a new window
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Online reference service offering access to more than two million full-text articles from multiple publishers, current
Current; CREDO Reference is the world's largest online reference service, offering access to 854+ electronic reference books on most subjects, including dictionaries, biographical sources, quotations, medicine, literature, music, technology, and many other interdisciplinary sources.
Gale Ebooks (formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library) This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research
Gale Ebooks is a collection of ebooks that includes encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
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Search 2 million entries spanning 25 subject areas across Oxford University Press dictionaries, companions, and encyclopedias, current.
Current; the core collection of Oxford Reference Online brings together 100 language and subject dictionaries and reference works published by the Oxford University Press into a single cross-searchable resource. The Premium Collection offers all of the above, plus added functionality and more detailed information across a broad subject range from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions Series, to enhance the coverage already provided by the Core Collection.

Dictionaries

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to more than 60,000 biographies, 72 million words, 11,000 portraits of figures in British history.
2004 edition; an illustrated collection of 50,000 specially written biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past, from the fourth century BC to the year 2001.
Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
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Includes 600,000 words, 3.5 million quotations, and more than 1000 years of English, current.
The OED Online contains the complete text of the 20-volume Second Edition, first published in 1989, together with its 3-volume Additions Series, published in 1993 (volumes 1 and 2) and 1997 (volume 3). The OED is currently being revised, with the aim of producing a completely updated third edition by the year 2010. Draft material from the revision programme will also be published online, representing the latest progress towards the new edition. More revised and new entries will be added to the online Dictionary every quarter.

Encyclopedias

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to editorially reviewed websites and the Encyclopedia Britannica, current.
Current; a reference site for students and educators synthesizing editorially reviewed websites and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Literature Resource Center (LRC) This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors, current.
Current; provides access to biographies, bibliographies and critical analysis of authors from every age and literary discipline. The LRC covers more than 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers, and indexes publications such as Contemporary Literary Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Contemporary Authors.

Encyclopedia of Literature & Criticism
Electronic resource, edited by Martin Coyle.
Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism (Gale)
"This Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive guide yet both to the nature and content of literature, and to literary criticism."
Encyclopedia of the Novel
Electronic version of the 2-volume print edition, published in 1998 by Fitzroy Dearborn, London. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries & Handbooks: Film

Please see the Reference Materials page of our Guide to Film and Video Resources:

Film & Video Resources: Reference Materials
Page from the library's guide to Video and Film Resources with selected reference materials from the collection.