Guide to Shelfmarks
Electronic Books
Key Reference Books
Other Useful Library Resources
Useful Web Links

 Guide to Shelfmarks

The main collections of books can be found on Levels 4 and 5 of the Library.

Books in heavy demand are placed in the Short Loan Collection on Level 1. The Short Loan Collection contains 1 day loan books; 7 day loan books are shelved with the ordinary loan books on the upper floors.

Use the Library catalogue to find the exact shelfmark and location for each book. If you are searching for books on a particular topic, use a keyword search.

Literature 8

 Electronic Books

You can use the Electronic Books page to access eBooks on Literature. The most
useful collections for English textbooks will be Dawsonera, Ebrary and MyILibrary.

There are also links from reading list titles on the Library catalogue to electronic versions of the text - look for "e-link"

 Key Reference Books

• Dictionary of English literature e-book
• Dictionary of literary symbols 809.915/FER
• Penguin dictionary of literary terms and literary theory 8(03)/CUD
• Edinburgh encyclopaedia of modern criticism and theory e-book
• Writers' and artists' yearbook 808.0205/WRI
• Oxford guide to literature in English translation 820.90/OXF
• Cambridge guide to children's books in English e-book
• Cambridge guide to literature in English e-book

Other Useful Library Resources

Newspapers

The main source of literary reviews for all types of literature are the Times Literary Supplement,
international, national and local newspapers.

The Library takes certain daily British broadsheet newspapers. Recent copies are on Level 1 of the Library and older copies are kept on the 2nd floor.

British newspapers and a huge variety of international papers can also be read electronically on Nexis.

For recent literature and obituaries, use the online newspaper archives in Nexis for published reviews. For older works and obituaries, you will need to locate reviews published at the time of publication or event. It helps for you to know the title of the work; the year and preferably month of publication/event and also the author.

Use books in the Library about the work concerned or its author to help identify these details. Or use the following reference books:

Dictionary of English literature
Oxford dictionary of national biography

Also use the online reference collections under Electronic Books

Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985: The complete digital edition of The Times (London) capturing the entire newspaper, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.

Also of interest may be: The Times held on microform from 1910 (in microform). Palmers Index to the Times 1790-1941(in microform) and Times Index 1941-1999 ( in the printed abstracts section).

Videos/DVDs

The video and DVD collections are held on Level 2 of the Learning Centre.

Most DVDs are on 1 day loan and are provided in locked boxes. Take the DVD to the
self-issue machines on Level 1 and issue it.  The staff at the Staff Hub will unlock the box. 

Watch Videos/DVD's in:

If you are searching for a video or DVD on a particular topic, use a keyword search and set the Collection box to "Recordings" on the Library catalogue.

Good Study Guides

• The good study guide 378.147226/NOR
• How to write better essays 808.042/GRE
• The arts good study guide 7/CHA
• Write great essays 808.066/LEV
• Excellent dissertations 808.066378/LEV

Guides to Referencing

Look at the help pages provided by the University of Surrey.

Also look at Pears, R. Cite them right: referencing made easy (Newscastle Upon Tyne: Northumbria University Press, 2008) which is available in the Library at 808.027 PEA

Ask Gill Downham for help (Room 02LC02) 

 Useful Web Links

Other Libraries

You may wish to search the catalogues of other libraries:

British Film Institute National Library the world's largest collection on film
and television. Reference use only. A charge is made to use the Library.
Check opening times before arrival.

British Library

Westminster Reference Library is a public reference library

Sconul Access is a reciprocal scheme with other  HE Libraries that gives reference rights to undergraduates.  Ask at the membership desk for more information and a card.

Other Useful Web Links

Baragona's Chaucer Page Internet resources for the study of Chaucer and Middle English

Bibliomania free access to literary texts, notes, biographies, study notes and reference materials

British Poetry 1780-1910 A hypertext archive of scholarly editions

Brown University Women Writers Project An electronic database of women's writing in English before 1830

Canadian Literature Archive A repository for information about Canadian writers, novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists, Canadian literary organisations, magazines, publications, texts and library archives

Caxton's Chaucer view the first two editions of Caxton's Chaucer side by side

Dickens Project this project by the University of California promotes the study of the life, times and work of Charles Dickens

Famous Quotes and Authorsa collection of quotes by various authors

Early Modern Literary Studies a free, refereed journal for sixteenth and seventeenth century English studies

F Scott Fitzgerald Centenary a collection of resources gathered together to mark the centenary of F Scott Fitzgerald

Ian McEwan homepage This is a good example of a writer's homepage. Includes bibliographies of primary and critical works and links to online interviews

Internet Library of Early Journals (ILEJ) A project jointly run by the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford, this is a digital library of six 18th and 19th century journals

The Medieval Bestiary explains the attributes and allegorical or moral interpretations applied to various real and mythical beast in the Middle Ages, along with Biblical, classical or medieval sources for these interpretations

The Modern Word A large collection of reviews, interviews and miscellaneous engagements with the more avant-garde edges of literature from the Modernists to the present day

Mr William Shakespeare and the Internet Annotated links to a vast range of material on the Internet of interest to Shakespeare students and scholars

Online Books Page University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page provides a gateway to some 25,000 free texts hosted on various sites around the Web

Oxford Text Archive A repository of electronic texts with significant English literature holdings

PALA Poetics and Linguistics Association. "An international academic institution for those who work in stylistics, poetics, and associated fields of language and linguistics"

Poetry Society This website gives details of poetry events and competitions and provides links to other related sites, including digitised poetry magazines  

Romantic Circles A refereed scholarly website for Romanticists. Includes news, reviews, teaching and research materials, and the excellent Praxis series of online essays

Romanticism on the Net an online peer-reviewed journal

Shakespeare on the Internet A sample of electronic scholarly resources on Shakespeare and the Renaissance

SHARP The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing provides a network for book historians.  Its pages include links to publishers' records, major projects in book history, scholarly societies and online exhibits

TouchstoneAllows users to locate Shakespeare resources and archives, identify current and previous productions and access information on related conferences, theatre groups and societies

The Victorian Web provides a commentary on the Victorian era and gives a sense of context in which Victorian literature was written

Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature Main PageA gateway to literature sites arranged by genre and period

Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive digitised images of Wilfred Owen's letters and manuscripts

William Blake Archive an online collection of primary works by the poet and illustrator