eReviews: MLA Literary Research Guide by the Modern Language Association
Nov 1, 2010MLA Literary Research Guide
Modern Language Association, mlalrg.org
Content The MLA Literary Research Guide (LRG) is “a selective, annotated guide to reference sources essential to the study of British literature, literatures of the United States, other literatures in English, and related topics.” Author James L. Harner “describe[s] and, in most instances, evaluate[s] important bibliographies, abstracts, surveys of research, indexes, databases, catalogs, general histories and surveys, annals, chronologies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks.” This thoroughly apt and clear description of the file comes from the introduction to the eponymous fifth print edition, the source of the online file. Its 1000-plus entries lead the researcher to over 1600 other articles, books, and electronic resources, as well as citations for over 700 reviews.
Usability The opening screen has a top toolbar with links to Home, Introduction, Types of Sources, Update Information, FAQ, and Local Resources. Below this is the title of the file, to the right of which appears a simple search box (accompanied by a link for Advanced Search). Below that are tabs to Contents, including guides to research methods and reference works like handbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Internet resources, as well as a truly impressive variety of bibliographic resources; the Research Process, in which researchers are instructed to click on the type of work wanted, including primary works and secondary works; and My Projects, where researchers can save their searches, entries, and notes (once they create an account in the system).
Note that subscribing libraries can set LRG up to link with their own catalog, so searchers can immediately locate copies of recommended titles in-house. The file automatically locates recommended sources in WorldCat and Google Books, and it identifies the differences between the print and electronic formats of LRG: “The print volume has subject, name, and title indexes. The indexes are not included in the electronic format, although they have been used to weight the results of the search function on this site. The electronic format of the Guide also includes the Research Process, which outlines step-by-step the process scholars use to identify and locate primary works (printed or manuscript) and secondary works.”
I first sampled the file by going into the Contents and taking a look at the section on Literary Handbooks, Dictionaries, and Encyclopedias. A click into the section took me to a paragraph describing these resources. One nice thing about this setup? I was able to take in the section at a glance: a stub of the introductory paragraph with a link to Show More if I wanted to read on, followed by links to Literary Terminology and General Literary Guides, accompanied by links to Expand All or Contract All.
These features make for a remarkably compact yet broadly expandable set of resources for searchers to discover and explore. Expanding all of the section headings, I found under Literary Terminology the Handbook to Literature and the Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, as well as See also references to Bernard Marie Dupriez’s Dictionary of Literary Devices, the International Dictionary of Theatre Language, and Richard A. Lanham’s Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. The list also included General Literary Guides like Oxford Classical Dictionary, Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Kindlers neues Literatur Lexikon, with a See also reference to Enzyklopädie des Märchens, and many others. Let me say, Professor Harner knows his Literary Guides.
Next I dipped into the Research Process Section and went to check out Primary Works—Manuscript. This section, beautifully organized and realized, identifies five steps to the research process (1: Consult guides to archives and collections, 2: Search union catalogs, 3: Search catalogs of major institutional collections, 4: Search catalogs devoted to a national literature, geographical area, or subject, and 5: Search text archives). You can quickly (and easily) click through the five steps, and under each one is a list of recommended linked sources. For example, under step one, there are links to records for ArchivesUSA, Janet Foster and Julia Sheppard’s British Archives, National Archives, and many, many more. Harner also knows his Archival and Manuscript Guides.
Then I did a search of LRG for “mystery fiction” and was led to Walter Albert’s Detective and Mystery Fiction: An International Bibliography of Secondary Sources; the section of the file on Genres (mystery fiction); and the section on Crime Fiction, including Michael L. Cook’s Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines. It’s extraordinarily easy to see and follow the literary research process the way this file has been set up—it should serve as a model for bringing a printed reference online.
Pricing Are you sitting down? The introductory access price is $50 for high school libraries, $80 for public libraries, $120 for college libraries, and $350 for university libraries. The annual update fee is $20, $30, $40, or $80 for the same range. I know, I know, hard to believe—I asked three times if these figures were correct. They are.
Bottom Line It is very difficult to imagine any scenario in which a library serving the literature needs of upper-division undergraduate students, graduate students, scholars, and other serious researchers would not want this file as soon as ever. Animatedly, energetically, enthusiastically, and vigorously recommended for all libraries serving the aforementioned populations. Content is ten, scope is ten, implementation is ten, design is ten. This product positively buzzes ten—the only problem is that I can’t take it with me in a Wayback Machine so I could have used it in undergraduate and graduate school.
For free trials, go to http://www.mla.org/lrg_freetrial.
