LibGuides: English: Tools for Finding Primary Sources


Library Research Guides

Discover and other databases

Discover This link opens in a new window
Searches the library catalog (especially good for finding books in Five College libraries' collections) and the majority of our subject-specific databases simultaneously. Search on an author's name to find works by that author. You can also try a title search if you know the name of a specific book that you'd like to find. Looking for a specific short story or poem? Searching the title of the story or poem in Discover will help you find out if it's available in an anthology or collection, or in a magazine.
Search the library catalog only (enter search terms and then limit) or dozens of databases together. A great place to start your research on almost any topic.
Short Story Index This link opens in a new window
Short Story Index Retrospective includes bibliographic entries for more than 150,000 short stories going back to 1915, and some citations from periodicals and short story collections going back to the 1830s. Searchable by author, title, subject, keyword, date, literary technique and source, or combinations of terms.

If you're currently working remotely for any reason, here are some tips for getting electronic versions of books, short stories, and poems:

HathiTrust - Digital Library of books, periodicals, etc. from research libraries.You'll notice some of the Five College Library catalog records for print books have a link stating that they're available via HathiTrust. Click on that link, login, and you can read the book online for an hour at a time. Note: only one user may access a HathiTrust book at a time.
Internet Archive - Provides free access to collections of digitized materials of all kinds including millions of books. Create a free account that allows you to check out electronic versions of books for one hour at a time. Note: only allows one user at a time, though sometimes more more than one edition of a book is available.
Interlibrary Loan - You can request scans of articles (think short stories or poems published individually in magazines or journals) and book chapters (think a short story or poem in a collection) via the library's interlibrary loan service, ILLiad. Often when you search any of the library's databases, you'll see an MHC Get It button by each result. Clicking on that button will get you to a screen where you'll have the option to make an interlibrary loan request.
Project Gutenberg - Library of over 60,000 free ebooks, with a focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Digitized and proofread by volunteers.