Discover searches most of the Mount Holyoke library's subscription databases and the Five College Libraries catalog at the same time. It allows you to search materials in all formats (print and electronic, text and multimedia) and across subjects. This can be really useful - very helpful if the topic you're researching is interdisciplinary - or can be a bit overwhelming if you get a lot of results. If the latter happens, you can always switch to searching the more focused, literature-specific databases on this page.
These databases track articles, books, and book chapters published in sources that cover the field of literature.
Not all books, plays, films and their creators receive the same amount of coverage in scholarly literature. Also, it takes time (months, sometimes a year or more) for scholarly articles to be published, so new works aren't likely to appear in that kind of source right away. If you're not finding much information about a work or its creator in scholarly journals or books, you may want to look for reviews and interviews. These may be found in magazines and newspapers. A few databases to search for reviews and interviews:
Literary companions are guides to an author and their works. They often include a sampling of articles that analyze different aspects of the author's works. This can offer a useful place to start when you're just beginning to explore and haven't picked a research topic of your own yet. Keep in mind that you'll usually only find companions for better known, established authors.
To find out if there's a companion for an author you're researching, search the author's name and the term "companion" in Discover. For example:
Some suggested journals for Professor Day's ENGL 199 Introduction to the Study of Literature class:
Some suggested journals for Professor Caitlin Mahaffy's English 211 Shakespeare class:
